Wife of Steele
by Madeleine Gilbert
Summary: S5 continuation; Steele Inseparable series, Pt. 7. Woman of Steele's Anna Simpson is out on parole. She wants Steele back; she's willing to use what she knows about his past to get him. Can Laura see the situation clearly enough to save him?
1. Prologue

STEELE INSEPARABLE VII: Wife of Steele

AUTHOR: Madeleine Gilbert

SYNOPSIS: S5, set in the _Steele Inseparable _universe; sequel to "Notoriously, Steele". "Woman of Steele's" Anna Simpson has been mysteriously paroled. She wants Steele back, and she's willing to use what she knows about his past to get him. Can Laura see the situation clearly enough to save him?

SHARES A UNIVERSE WITH/OCCURS AFTER: Part I, "Steele in Perspective'; Part II, "Steele-In-Law"; Part III, "Ancestral Steele"; Part IV, "Steele in the Shadows"; Part V, The Prequel, "Requiem in Steele Major"; Part VI: "Notoriously, Steele"

DISCLAIMER: This story is not for profit and is purely for entertainment purposes. The author does not own the rights to these characters and is not now, nor ever has been, affiliated in any way with _Remington Steele_, its producers, its actors and their agents, MTM productions, the NBC television network, or with any station or network carrying the show in syndication.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is a companion piece and sequel to "Notoriously, Steele", in which I provided Steele with an opportunity to save Laura's life in romantic, movie-hero fashion. Here, in this sequel—which took on a life of its own, expanding until it was considerably longer than I first envisioned--I'm giving Laura equal time. Call it a Steele-in-peril, Laura-saves-the-day story.

It's meant to operate as a stand-alone tale, so that even those who are unfamiliar with the _Steele Inseparable _series may enjoy it. Obviously it builds on the events that took place in "Notoriously, Steele." Elements of back story from "Steele in Perspective" and "Ancestral Steele" have also been woven into its fabric.

For those reading a _Steele Inseparable _story for the first time: Archie and Robbie Dalgleish are the sons of Daniel Chalmers' surviving sister, Lillian, aka Mrs. Adair Dalgleish. Lucy Dale is a second cousin. All appear in "Ancestral Steele".

**To those who have read and continued to read my stories: thank you for your interest. I am truly grateful to every one of you. And, to those who have also taken the time to leave feedback, I appreciate it more than I can say.**

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Prologue

No matter what their commercials claimed, thought Laura Steele, Volkswagen hadn't built the Rabbit to travel at speeds in excess of a hundred miles an hour.

She knew it because she was currently putting her own Rabbit to the test, not by choice but out of necessity. With the speedometer needle hanging at just under one hundred and five, the little car lurched and shuddered. There was a rattling sound from somewhere behind the dashboard, and a high-pitched whine in the vicinity of the steering wheel.

Her right foot steadily depressed the accelerator. The needle crept to the left. One hundred six. One hundred seven. One hundred eight.

Under the Rabbit's tires the southbound I-5 swept forward, a blur of hot asphalt. The desert landscape around her was indistinguishable at this speed. It wasn't as if she was sightseeing anyway. All her attention was on the roadside markers that were counting down the miles to San Diego, tangible proof that she was closing the distance that separated her from her quarry.

There were only six more to go.

One hundred nine. One ten.

Let me not be too late. In her head it repeated over and over. Please. Please. Let me not be too late.

Half a mile north of the combined Sassafras Street and Kettner Boulevard exit, she cut to the right across two lanes of traffic and took the off ramp with tires squealing. Her familiarity with San Diego was good enough that she found Harbor Island Drive without difficulty. In a matter of moments she was within sight of the bay.

Either Summergold Marina's layout was confusing, or the long, anxious ride had sapped her powers of concentration, because she had a hell of a time figuring out in which direction lay the slip she was looking for. After frittering away fifteen precious minutes, she broke into a run that took her back to her starting point.

The two men at work in the marina office looked startled as she burst through the door. "Hey, lady, do you mind?" one of them said.

She continued right up to the counter area. "I'm looking for a yacht," she said. "_The English Rose_. Can you tell me if it's here? Slip one ninety-eight. It would've docked around six last night."

"We don't keep track of our customers' comings and goings," said the other man, eying her with suspicion.

She'd extracted her i.d. from her purse and shown it to him before he was done speaking. "I'm a private detective, and I'm looking for one of the passengers. It might be a matter of life and death."

Glancing around, she made a quick inventory of her surroundings. The marina obviously did more than furnish dockage and repair boats; display shelves stacked with everything from marine radios to propane stoves indicated that it also engaged in retail business. "Maybe some of the crew came in for supplies?" she went on. "The captain's name is Watts, Mike Watts."

"I know Mike," chimed in the first man. "He was in last night. Stocked up on propane, paraffin, stuff like that."

Laura's heart leapt in sudden hope. "Did you see anyone else? The passengers I mentioned?" She held out a photo of Remington. "This man, for example?"

Her peered at it and nodded. "Oh, yeah, he was here. Him and some blonde." Now he was gazing at her more attentively. "You his wife?"

"Why do you ask?"

"He said to expect you. 'Slender brunette with knockout legs asking a lot of questions.' That'd be you?"

Slender brunette with knockout legs. It sounded like Remington. She could hear him drawl the words as clearly as if he were across the counter from her.

The buoyant feeling of a few seconds ago was turning into apprehension. Icy calm, Mrs. Steele, she told herself. Icy calm. "Yes," she said aloud.

By now the marina guy had elbowed his partner aside to unlock a drawer and rummage around inside. Withdrawing a parcel wrapped in brown paper, he offered it to her. "Said to give you this."

Her hands, she noticed with surprise, were quite steady as she accepted it. "Thanks. Which way to slip one ninety-eight?"

"Left on the boardwalk, keep going until you get to the last pier. Hey, lady--"

Already halfway across the room, she glanced back over shoulder.

"—you won't find him there."

"Why not?"

"They put out this morning. At least it's what Watts told me he was planning. From the amount of stuff he bought, looked like it'll be a long cruise."

"He didn't--" she paused to swallow and then to moisten her lips, but still her voice came out strangled—"say where they were headed?"

It figured all the guy could do was shrug. Blindly she slipped out the door; blindly, unable to draw a deep breath, she made her way back to the Rabbit.

Once there, away from prying eyes, she tore furiously at the brown paper. Something smooth and heavy and round dropped into her palm.

Gold gleamed in the sunlight. Sparks from the square-cut sapphire of Remington's wedding ring dazzled her eyes.

His note said:

_Darling,_

_Not long ago you gave my ring back to me. Now it's my turn to return the favor._

_As they say in the vernacular: you know what to do with it and everything it means._

_Steele_

She'd survived pain like this before, she told herself. The heaviness gripping her chest—that wasn't really suffocation. The pounding in her head would subside. So would the roaring in her ears. Any minute now, she told herself, her natural drive and determination, her great investigative instincts, her focus and control, would come to her rescue. They'd kick in, and she'd find him and bring him home.

The pep talk didn't do any good. For in front of her the entire time as a counterpoint was the vast expanse of the Pacific, reminding her that somewhere over it traveled a yacht called _The English Rose_, and its owner, Anna Simpson, and the man with her, Remington Steele. And there was no way of tracking them. They could be anywhere by now. Anywhere.

She had to face it. She might never see the man she loved again.

This time, Anna had won.

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Steele," Laura whispered into her husband's ear.

She failed to get a response—or, rather, she got the non-response she expected. Remington was a notably heavy sleeper, and they'd gotten in late the night before from a Christmas Eve party given at the Fulham home of his second cousin, Lucy Dale. The Steeles had arrived in London the previous day.

It was in itself a break from tradition, their absence from Los Angeles on December twenty-fourth. That, and the fact that they'd cancelled Remington Steele Investigations' annual Christmas open house. Considering what had happened last year, the invasion of the Santas, grueling hours spent as hostages, each member of the agency having at one point or another stared down the barrel of a loaded gun, Laura had made an executive decision and called a hiatus. Whether or not it would last beyond this December remained to be seen.

There was more to their London trip than a simple desire to escape unpleasant memories, or deviate from their routine. It was time—past time, really, Remington had said—they renewed their acquaintance with the members of his family they'd met in July, when they'd traveled over to collect his inheritance. His cousins Archie and Robbie Dalgleish, sons of Daniel Chalmers' only sibling, had been issuing almost monthly invitations in the interim. Last night's party was the welcome to the family they'd had to postpone due to a personal catastrophe Laura preferred not to dwell upon.

It had been a smashing success. The extended Chalmers family had made much of Remington, partly because his father, Daniel, had been a great favorite among them, but also for his own sake. All evening long he'd been passed around from relative to relative, just as he had as a child in Ireland. Only now his relations were competing with each other, not to be rid of him, but to get to know him better.

He was keyed up and overflowing with talk all the way back to the St. John Mayfair and afterward, into the wee small hours. Remembering how little sleep he'd had gave her pause as she shook him again. But then she steeled herself. It was Christmas morning and they ought to be celebrating. He'd thank her for it later.

At last her persistence was rewarded: he pulled his face out of the pillow and squinted through bleary eyes at her travel alarm clock. "A quarter past six?" His initial disbelief gave way to a baleful glare. "Laura, have you forgotten we're on holiday?"

Laughing at his expression, she brushed the hair out of his eyes and kissed him, his stubbly cheek rough against hers. "Breakfast is here, and it's time for presents. Where's your Christmas spirit?"

"Six thousand miles and four time zones to the west, apparently. I suppose it's no use asking you to wait until it's caught up with me."

"In that case we'll be here for weeks. Up and at 'em, big fella. Your eggs Benedict is getting cold. You can take a nap after church." And to the accompaniment of his darkly muttered imprecations, she left him to it.

By the time he emerged from the bathroom, she'd set the mood in the sitting room. A program of traditional hymns and carols was playing on the stereo; lights glowed on the miniature tree she'd finagled from the hotel florist, with her gifts to him arranged beneath it. The aroma of hot coffee and pastries wafted from the laden breakfast table.

His approving glance seemed to signal that he'd recovered from his habitual morning grouchiness. "Lovely. But aren't we missing something?

She knit her brow. Christmas tree, carols, breakfast, presents. What more could they ask?

The sprig of mistletoe he held aloft provided the answer. "Merry Christmas, Mrs. Steele," he said, and pulled her into the curve of his other arm, and kissed her.

"You've been carrying that around for days, haven't you?" she laughed up at him. "Waiting for the chance to use it."

"It's best to be prepared to seize the moment. You've taught me that, Laura." And he dipped his head, coaxing her lips to his once more.

The kiss deepened. She pressed closer to him; the mistletoe dropped to the ground unheeded as he ran his hands slowly down her body. "Your new pajamas suit you," he murmured. He'd given them to her yesterday evening, before the party, and asked her to wear them to bed that night.

She gave another low laugh. "Confess. You've developed a weakness for paisley silk."

"Mm, possibly. For the woman under it? Absolutely."

For a few seconds longer she relished the sensations his wonderful hands awoke in her. Then, before it got of control, she slipped adroitly out of his embrace. "Breakfast first, Mr. Steele. And then presents. And then…"

"…You're open to suggestions?"

All it took was the slightest lift of her brow to elicit that grin from him, the one that sparkled with amusement and mischief and the anticipation of sensual delights to come.

They sat down at the table together. During the meal she could barely restrain her excitement, and watched him covertly to see if he'd spotted it. But no, as far as she could tell, he was oblivious to the surprises she had in store for him.

As it turned out, she would need all her considerable talent for dissimulation and self-control. For when breakfast was over, and it was time to exchange gifts, he insisted on "ladies first", and knelt on the floor beside the sitting room sofa while she opened a slim rectangular package.

From beneath a layer of cotton batting she extracted a narrow gold bracelet set with a symmetrical pattern of diamonds. Apart from her wedding ring, Remington had never bought her such an extravagant gift. The gesture struck her momentarily dumb. She wasn't sure what he read in her expression as she met his eyes, but it made him smile.

Their silent dialogue didn't end until he held out his hand for the bracelet. "May I?" Fastening it on her right wrist, he added, "It's a new fashion, so I'm told, inspired by Chris Evert at the US Open. Tennis bracelet, they call it."

"It's beautiful. Does it matter that I don't play tennis?"

"Don't you?"

"You know perfectly well I don't."

He shrugged. "Pity. Well, I'm sure it won't go entirely to waste. The bracelet's versatile, and you're an athletic girl. Perhaps you'll find another venue where it would be appropriate." He handed her another package.

This one was considerably flatter, which made sense, since all it contained was an ordinary manila clasp envelope. With a glance at him from beneath her lashes, she examined the papers inside. At first she couldn't believe what she was reading. "This is a registration confirmation for the Boston Marathon. In my name."

"You don't say."

"And plane tickets. And reservations for two for three nights at the Eliot Hotel."

"We'll have to sleep somewhere, Laura."

"Mr. Steele…" The papers dropped from her hand to her lap. "You really did it? Entered me in the Marathon?"

"With an assist from Mildred."

"But how?"

"That race you ran in San Jose in September? It's a Boston Marathon qualifier. And your time was well within eligibility requirements." Still on his knees, he wrapped his arms around her waist and twinkled up at her. "I thought it might be time you attempted it. Just to see if you can do it."

It was the rationale by which she'd justified her entry in the West Side Triathlon back in the early spring. Unconvinced, he'd accepted it grudgingly, almost disapprovingly. That was the genesis of the rockiest period of their relationship, which had dragged on, with varying degrees of animosity, until Daniel Chalmers' death.

A lot had changed between them since then.

She leaned forward to stroke his hair, tousling it lightly through her fingers. "You know," she said, looking him smack in the eye, "April eighteenth's a long way off. If you started training with me now, you'd be ready to take a stab at it, yourself."

"Laura. Are you suggesting I run twenty-six miles? Without being chased?"

"I had other…incentives…in mind."

He flashed a roguish grin. "Tempting though the offer is, my love, I'd prefer to cheer you from the sidelines. And welcome you when you arrive at the finish line…minutes ahead of the pack, of course…with the bracelet as your good luck charm."

"Sounds like a plan to me." His face held between her hands, she kissed him lingeringly. "Thank you. It's wonderful, all of it. And so are you."

Really he was beyond irresistible--more than any man had a right to be--as he traced the line of her cheekbone and jaw with one gentle fingertip in that way he had. "My turn," he whispered around another kiss.

It was with a return of that flutter of nervous excitement that she retrieved his presents from beneath the tree.

She'd thought long and carefully before choosing those gifts. That wasn't a unique occurrence; she always regarded Christmas as a creative challenge, and rose to meet it admirably, if she did say so herself. But this year, after bringing all her ingenuity to bear on the dilemma and then some, she still wasn't completely satisfied with what she'd come up with for Remington.

She'd been stumped. That was the crux of it. After all…what kind of present was appropriate for a husband who'd promised that he'd lay down his own life before he would let anyone hurt her? Who, with the promise made, had demonstrated by concrete actions his readiness to deliver?

It was exactly what Remington had done. And she was still dealing with a strange combination of emotions because of it: grateful beyond words; humbled by a devotion whose extent she hadn't suspected; and, perversely, plagued by a drive to match, if not outdo him. To even the score somehow.

They'd taken a case as a favor for an old Stanford friend whose sister had disappeared without a trace from her job in a town north of the Italian Riviera. Circumstances were fortuitous in one respect when it came to their m.o., less than ideal in another. While Laura was able to step into the position the missing woman had left--secretary to an Italian diplomat's wife--there was no logical role for Remington to play without exciting suspicion. Her solution? She would travel to Pramagiorre and undertake a solo investigation. He wouldn't join her unless she needed him.

He'd hated it. And he'd seethed with outspoken objections to it. The two of them would solve the case much more quickly if they were together. She'd never visited Italy before. She didn't speak the language. The secretarial job wouldn't allow her time to conduct a thorough investigation. Impatiently she'd dismissed them as a cover, and a lame one at that, for his newly developed, overprotective attitude towards her, which had already caused them problems.

It was, but only partly. He also knew the region of Italy in question, had firsthand experience of its people as insular, vengeful and unrelenting, especially towards outsiders who meddled in their affairs. His concern for her was backed up by genuine substance.

Events had proven him right in the end. She'd unearthed evidence of an unspeakable forty-year-old crime that held the potential to destroy a powerful man's political career. It also suggested that her friend's sister had been killed over it. She'd scarcely had time to pass on the information to Remington when the man, Alessandro Castagnoli, had sprung his trap. Cut off from contact with the outside world, she, too, was targeted for murder before she was properly aware that she was in jeopardy.

There was neither time nor opportunity to reach out to Remington for help.

It didn't matter. As soon as she missed a scheduled phone call to him, he'd acted. Suddenly, miraculously, he'd appeared at her side when she needed him most. Once there, he'd fought for her life with an implacable fierceness she hadn't known was in him, first against the men who tried to murder her, then against the poison that was their weapon.

Thanks to the poison's soporific effect on her, much of that night was shrouded in a permanent fog. One thing she did remember clearly, though: being held secure in Remington's arms while he faced down her captors and carried her to safety. They hadn't faltered for a second, those arms. Neither had his voice, her lifeline throughout the ordeal, steady, humorous, patient, pulling her back over and over from the brink of a sleep they both knew would have been fatal.

Obviously it wasn't the first time he'd saved her life and wouldn't be the last. It was what working as partners in a dangerous profession was all about. But the situation in Pramagiorre was different from any other they'd encountered. She'd seldom been so incapable of freeing herself from a tight spot; he'd seldom been asked to run such risks for her sake. And he'd done it without the slightest suggestion in his attitude that the jam she was in was due to some deficiency of strength or resourcefulness in her. He was her other half, he seemed to say, shoring her up during a temporary weakness. No doubt it wouldn't be long before she'd be asked to return the favor.

Curled up with him a few evenings later on the terrace at the Villa Montreuil, the Menton home he'd inherited from Daniel, she'd tried to express how much his rescue mission had touched and overwhelmed her. It was the first day she'd been recovered enough from the poison to get out of bed; they were in the midst of a low-key celebration. He listened to her in silence and then turned a puzzled blue gaze on her. "You're my wife, Laura," he said. "What else should I have done?" As if it were purely routine, a matter of course, costing him no more effort than if she had been stranded somewhere in Los Angeles with a flat tire and he'd come to pick her up.

He wasn't pretending, either. Telling the story to Mildred and the Pipers within his earshot provoked the same self-effacing reaction from him. Where was the preening, posturing Steele who used to drive her crazy with his appetite for the spotlight? Who wouldn't have let the smallest occasion to promote himself go to waste? Vanished without a trace. The seeming overnight change in him was a little perplexing.

And it added fuel to the uneasy feeling that wouldn't go away, the one that said there was an inequity between them…that she owed him a debt she might never be able to repay. She was the giver in this relationship, wasn't she? And he the recipient? Wasn't that how it was supposed to be?

No such concerns were troubling him as he started on the pile of gifts, eyes shining with boyish expectancy. Probably it was how he would've looked as a child, if anyone had cared enough about him in those days to play Santa. Instead, far too many of his Christmases had been reminders that he was an outsider, unwanted, belonging to no one. It was the main reason why she always went a little overboard for him during the holidays. She recognized it and didn't give a damn.

This year it was one small way to compensate for what he'd done for her.

By now he'd unwrapped a set of engraved jewelry: gold cuff links and tie bar bearing the initials RCS. He traced the middle letter with a thumbnail. " 'C' for Chalmers," he said softly.

"I thought it was a way of keeping your family name alive. And remembering Daniel."

"Indeed it is. They're perfect. Thank you."

Neither of them commented that she'd never before given him anything that bore Remington Steele's monogram.

There was more, fine cotton shirts with his initials embroidered on the cuffs, pocket squares with similar embroidery, as well as a new cologne and sundry little items she hadn't been able to resist. One of them, a gift certificate, made him chuckle. "Ah, Mrs. Steele! Fulfilling your promise at last. The entire MGM library on videocassette! Better late than never, eh?"

"Laura Steele's word _is_ her bond, Mr. Steele."

"Good to know you're determined to uphold the family code of honor."

With the other packages opened, she handed him a plain white envelope she'd withheld from the rest. Half quizzical, half amused, his gaze stayed on her while he tore it open. But the smile faded from his lips as he read the single page inside. "Laura…"

She let him absorb it. It was the class schedule for the studio lessons she'd arranged for him with Rafael Gabrieli, a painter of some repute who also accepted a select number of students every year. The idea was to help Remington make the transition to oil painting, which he wanted, but frankly admitted intimidated him. Now he would have the best professional guidance he could ask.

"How did--?" He paused to inhale a steadying breath. "How did you manage it?"

"Piece of cake, really. I called to inquire, Gabrieli asked for samples of your work, and I took some over. He signed you up then and there."

"What did you show him?"

"The watercolor study of me in arabesque. And those sketches of the harbor at Menton. He said--" she couldn't help smiling at the recollection "—your knowledge of drawing is fundamentally sound, and you have a wonderful grasp of the human form in motion."

He didn't reply right away. She watched him, his head bowed over the letter, the silky dark hair with the stray lock fallen over his forehead.

Then he said with a queer choke in his voice: "You really do believe in me, don't you?"

"With all my heart," she whispered. And didn't mind that he might hear how her throat caught on the words.

For a few more seconds he didn't move. Then he did, swiftly capturing her hands in both of his. One by one he turned them over and pressed his lips to each palm.

It wasn't long before the light-hearted mood was re-established—his influence, naturally. When she rose and began to gather up the discarded wrapping paper and ribbons, he swept them out of reach and grabbed her hand again. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

"I've one more present to open. Come along, Mrs. Steele."

In the bedroom he scooped her up and laid her on the bed. But he resisted her attempt to pull him down to her by his lapels. Instead he stretched out on his side, slipping an arm beneath her and drawing her to him. Leisurely he began to unfasten the top button of her pajama jacket.

Laughter spilled from her as the method in his madness became clear. "I take it you're opening your present?"

"Precisely." If anyone else had tried that leer on her, she would've been disgusted. But coming from him the combination of smirk and quirking eyebrows was downright adorable.

To the accompaniment of his soft-voiced endearments—turns of phrase he never used except in making love to her--his dexterous fingers continued their progress down the line of buttons. At first she willed herself to restrain her impatience for him. But at the feel of his hands sliding beneath the silk, his mouth warm on the sensitive flesh of her throat and breasts and stomach, the gathering tension got the better of her, and she arched assertively towards him.

With long, slow movements he soothed and stroked her. "Easy, me angel, easy," he breathed. "We've hours before church. Savor the moment, eh?"

She relaxed and gave herself up to pure sensation. Later, when she took over, he settled back with a rapturous sigh for his turn to be undressed and caressed and aroused. It was the reason they were so good together, this ability they'd learned to abandon their pleasure into one another's hands rather than vying constantly for sole control of the moment. And that was a reflection of a greater reality: how far they'd let down their mutual guard and how hard they'd worked to build trust between them over the six-and-a-half months of their marriage.

Of course, love might've had a little something to do with it, too.

Love. Trust. Why had she ever imagined that she could only have the one, and not the other, with him?

At last he gently rolled her to her back, braced himself on his forearms and bent to kiss her mouth. His naked shoulders and chest loomed above her; the muscles of his backside flexed under her fingertips. And her body rose to receive him, enclosing him, making them one, the way they'd promised in their wedding vows.

_This_ man. Always and only him. Him, with his long, strong body, his lightning-quick mind, the sunshine and shadows of his temperament, both the easy laughter and the quiet moodiness, his humor and tenderness, courage and tenacity, and the thousands of other facets that made him the person he was. This man, no one else, not ever again.

Gratitude permeated the thought, transforming it into a prayer of thanksgiving.

It wasn't until afterward, in hindsight, that she recognized it was also a plea to keep their life as husband and wife from coming to an end.

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Laura, have a look at this," Remington said abruptly.

It was two hours since they'd returned from morning service with his cousins Robbie and Archie and their families, and two hours before they were due for Christmas dinner at Archie's home in Chelsea. Church with the family had been a heartwarming but unremarkable occasion, except for the comedy furnished by Adair Dalgleish, Robbie's youngest son. Ignoring his mother's frowns, he'd repeatedly turned around from his seat in the pew in front of the Steeles to fix round blue eyes on Remington in an unblinking stare. Laura had seen it before, this effect her husband had on small children. Remington had matched the little boy look for look every time, equally solemn, except that his lips twitched with suppressed laughter.

Now, back in their hotel suite, she glanced up from her book. Remington was at the opposite end of the sitting room sofa, blue-jeaned legs propped on the coffee table, her stocking feet in his lap, buried deep in the edition of _The Los Angeles Times _he'd purchased in the hotel gift shop. Or so she'd thought.

"What is it?" she said.

"Walter Patton's died." And he held a section of the paper out to her.

She felt the tiniest twinge of warning as she took it. The effect wasn't derived from Patton's name, but the associations connected with it. Patton himself had never possessed any power to hurt them.

Yet he'd been a powerful man, an international businessman with a reputation for dispassionate efficiency, economic advisor to governors and presidents, a philanthropist whose gifts to various entities totaled in the millions. "His personal fortune," said the article, "is estimated at well over fifteen billion dollars…According to inside sources, Patton's assets at the time of his death included homes in Martha's Vineyard, Palm Beach, Paris, and Gstaad, Switzerland, a private beachfront compound north of Malibu with anchorage for his yacht, _The English Rose_, hundreds of acres of as-yet undeveloped real estate in Texas, Utah, Colorado and Montana, and extensive interests in oil and natural gas exploration".

She studied the accompanying black and white photo. No question that Patton had once looked the part. The shrewd, light eyes, the silver hair expertly barbered, the broad shoulders in the expensive suit: each said that here was a man to be reckoned with. She was sure it was true at that point in his life.

But it wasn't how she remembered him.

The man in the photograph was probably no more than sixty-five. The Walter Patton with whom she was confronted three years ago at the Los Angeles County Courthouse could've passed for eighty, though she knew now from the article that he was a decade younger. He was stooped, as if carrying a burden too heavy even for someone his size. His face was lined, haggard, ashen almost to grayness. His hands were shaking. And it was clear that he'd needed the support of his chair beside the defendant's counsel just as much as the glass of water that he lifted again and again to his lips during the proceedings.

Granted, it was hot and stuffy in the courtroom, par for the course in late September in Los Angeles. And it must've been incredibly difficult, waiting for his erstwhile fiancée, Lydia Van Owen, to rise before the judge while the official indictment of first degree murder was read against her, waiting for her reply as to how she would plead.

He was the only one calling her Lydia by then. She had become Anna Simpson Marleau to everyone else, law enforcement, press and the general public. Remington—or, rather, Steele--had divulged her identity in his statement to the police after he and Laura witnessed her murder of Raymond Marleau.

That was the beginning of a tense six months for them, though they had no inkling of it that night. "She's out of our lives, Laura," Steele had said in unintentional irony as she drove him from the police station to his car. He'd left it at the scene of Marleau's death, Club 10 in Beverly Hills. For a few minutes she'd waited in silence, expecting him to add "she'll never come between us again". He hadn't. The omission bothered her more than she was willing to let on.

He'd made up for it the following evening, by implication and actions, if not in actual words. They'd barely seen each other up until then; she'd spent most of the day over in San Bernardino, negotiating a security contract, while he did whatever he usually did in the office in her absence. When he failed to call her with dinner plans, she'd assumed he was taking time out to lick his wounds in private.

It was just as well. She'd had more than enough of the drama that Anna's sudden appearance in his life had set in motion. For forty-eight hours she'd ridden the roller coaster with him: his obviously divided loyalties; her own jealousy; her increasing conviction that not only was Anna manipulating him, her intentions towards him were anything but benign; his blind faith in the other woman even in the face of damning evidence against her.

Not to mention searching for him last night, heart in her mouth, as soon as Anna's plan to drive him and Marleau to destroy each other became plain to her. Thronging her imagination were visions of him collapsed in a heap on the floor at Club 10, his lifeblood ebbing away. Or, worse, already dead, taking her chance to say good-bye—and of telling him how much she loved him—with him. The fact that she'd arrived in plenty of time to watch his back and save him from Anna hadn't done a lot to erase those images. Not yet, anyway. Steele wasn't the only one who had wounds to tend.

To her surprise, he'd shown up at the loft around seven o'clock on the flimsy pretext of cracking open a bottle of champagne, a gift from the client whose need for a security system had triggered the nightmare. It didn't seem worth pointing out how easily she saw through him. Besides, he told her himself it was just an excuse. He wanted to talk. Since it was such an untypical occurrence, and what she wanted, too, she'd invited him in.

She'd read his nervousness in his subdued tone and gestures and in the way he toyed with her dish sponge while she poured the champagne. After some initial hemming and hawing, he finally got out what he came to say. And it was a bigger surprise than his showing up in the first place. "When I went to see Anna today, it was for two reasons," he'd explained. "One, to tell her I'd sent Raymond packing. The second…and more painful…was to tell her we didn't have a future together. We'll always have a past…but that's where that relationship belongs. In the past."

She'd studied him with deliberate detachment. His gaze on her was steady, the blue eyes franker than she'd ever seen them. Could it be—briefly she struggled with the thought—could it be he was telling the truth? The thumping of her heart told her how much she wanted the answer to be yes.

But her head, always the more dominant organ of the two, as well as the more reliable, was exhorting her to keep cool, not to show him too much, to make him work for it. He hadn't exactly been kind to her the last few days; didn't he deserve to sweat a little?

So she said calmly: "What made you decide that?"

He'd swallowed, his lashes veiling his eyes for a second or two. Then he looked steadily into her face again. He was earnest. He was contrite. And, hard as it was for him, he was trying to express his emotions out loud. She was melting towards him in spite of herself.

"You," he replied. There was the tiniest crack in his voice. "I'm not the man I was when I walked into your life, Laura. I've changed. You've changed me."

On the surface she passed it off with a self-deprecating comment. Underneath, however, her mind was racing. So he'd been conflicted all along? Torn between Anna and her, with her, Laura, gradually gaining the upper hand in the contest? She hadn't seen any sign of it. To the contrary, what she'd intuited was initial confusion that had segued rapidly into preoccupation, followed by irritation, and then resentment that she'd undermined his trust in this woman he'd once loved. Had he really hidden his feelings so well? Or was it that she didn't understand him as well as she thought?

In the wake of those questions, another, more sobering: would he have chosen her if Anna hadn't tried to kill him?

It could've been a relationship breaker. But she didn't allow it to get that far. In that moment, she made a conscious decision to accept his confession at face value, and skillfully evaded his every move to return to the topic. Setting herself to forgive him, she'd buried the question deep inside where it wouldn't brew trouble between them.

It was only sometimes, usually when they seemed most precarious, that it would rise to haunt her in the months and years to come.

So that took care of their brief estrangement. Too bad that the danger Anna continued to pose to Steele couldn't be so easily removed. It had manifested itself within days of Marleau's shooting, with the announcement that Walter Patton had retained a high-powered East Coast litigator named Clayton Endicott to defend Anna in her upcoming murder trial.

She remembered the dismay in the look she and Steele had exchanged when they heard the news. Early indications had led them to believe that Anna didn't intend to contest the charges, that she would plead guilty to first-degree murder, negating the need for witnesses for and against her. They'd been relived to hear it. It was the biggest worry they had, the possibility of Steele called to the stand and subjected to cross-examination. That was why they'd agreed not to disclose to the police that Anna had tried to kill him along with Marleau. No one could predict what Anna might reveal about his past, but it was logical to assume the worst. The woman had already proven the lengths to which she was willing to go in the interest of self-preservation; it would be completely in character for her to turn Steele's testimony to his harm. What did she have to lose? Better to deny her the opportunity before she knew it existed.

But their precaution had been in vain. As the reality sank in, Steele looked at Laura helplessly. "I realize I'm a relative newcomer to your shores, and still ignorant of many of the nuances of American jurisprudence. But can she actually do this?"

"She's entitled by law to plead guilty or innocent to the charges according to the advice her counsel gives her. Whether he can prove her innocence is another story." Laura frowned. "That's how it works for a citizen, anyway. Is she? An American citizen?"

"I've no idea."

"If she's not, someone's obviously taken a lot of trouble to make sure she's afforded the same protections."

"Patton," he said flatly.

She nodded.

Eyes fixed on the wall display of his publicity photos, he stood silent, hands jammed into his pockets. It was highly questionable that he was really looking at anything. "You realize what this means, don't you?" he said at length.

"I have a pretty good grasp of the implications, yes."

"It'll all come out, what Anna knows. Who I've been. What I've done. No real proof that I'm not Remington Steele, let alone that you invented him, but it would hardly matter at that point. I'll have been tarred as a felon. And you—and the agency—will suffer for it."

Stung by the reminder that he'd divulged more to Anna about his past than he had to her, she'd winced, but made herself shrug it off. "Not necessarily. It all depends on the prosecuting attorney. If he's on the ball, he can jump on any line of questioning not strictly pertinent to the case before it gets out of hand. It's what objections are for, Mr. Steele."

"Still pursuing that impossible mission to discover a silver lining for every cloud, eh, Miss Holt?"

"Someone needs to inject a little optimism into the mood around here."

With a shake of the head he'd joined her where she was perched on the outer edge of his desk and leaned against it with his arms folded. "You can't honestly think that a lawyer as good as this Endicott won't find a way to bring out damaging information about me. By innuendo, if nothing else. And too late for his opposition to erase the impression it leaves, even if it is stricken from the official record. We've both seen it too many times to tell ourselves it can't happen."

He was right; she had to admit it. What she wasn't ready to admit was defeat. "There's got to be some way out of it," she said firmly. "We'll just keep working until we find it."

But as the summer wore on, so did their anxiety. No solution had appeared on the horizon. The only saving grace throughout was that she and Steele were growing closer. A by-product of the pressure on them? Hard to say. But the transparency he'd demonstrated in their conversation that night at the loft was lasting longer than she would've anticipated. He was resorting less and less frequently to the charming rogue routine in their daily interaction and revealing more of his real self—and she loved what she saw. He went as far as to ask if he could tag along when she was invited to take part in a performance of the Stanford Glee Club to be staged in Cannes in September. It was disconcerting how much optimism for the future that woke in her, even amidst the tension over Anna's trial.

By mid-August, they'd both been deposed by the prosecuting attorney and received their individual summons to appear as witnesses. The trial date had been fixed for the last week of September, ten days following their return from France.

But from Clayton Endicott there was only silence. A bad sign, in Steele's opinion; the havoc it was wreaking on his temper was obvious. "Why the devil doesn't he contact us?" He was pacing up and down the living room at Rossmore with angry strides. "He can't seriously be planning to walk into that courtroom without ever once speaking to us!"

She took a sip of wine in an effort to keep his frustration level from affecting hers. "I don't understand it, either. It's highly unusual, to say the least."

"Because he's got a bombshell to drop with me as the target! And he's stage-managing it for maximum damage!"

"We don't know that for sure."

He'd given a bark of incredulous laughter. "Don't we? We know Anna. Or I do, finally. This is exactly the sort of behavior I should've expected from her."

It was the first he'd spoken with such animosity towards the other woman, and she'd gazed at him in surprise. "It isn't very likely she has much input on her lawyer's strategy."

"If you believe that, Laura," he'd replied, scowling, "you're hopelessly naïve."

That was all he would say. She had reason to remember it, because it would be years before he spoke again of his feelings for Anna. A few days later they'd departed for Cannes, where their ill-advised agreement to stop mixing the personal with the professional was forged. By the time they returned home the newly stand-offish, businesslike version of Steele was firmly established. And it was he who was sitting next to her in the courtroom the day Anna's trial began.

That must've been why his reaction to Anna's entrance was so controlled as to be almost non-existent. A muscle had tightened in his cheek; one hand had twitched spasmodically on the arm of his chair. A split second, and his body language was neutral again, impossible to read. His facial expression never changed.

Given the other woman's appearance, it was a masterful piece of acting. She really did look awful. The gravity of the charges against her had precluded any hope of release on bail, which meant she'd been in jail since March. A badly fitting uniform of chambray shirt and pants had replaced the expensive clothes. She wore no makeup. The blonde mane was hacked short, probably to make it easier to care for in a place where access to blow dryers or curlers or a stylist to touch up the color every few months was forbidden. But the most profound change was in her bearing. Gone was the uplift of the head, the insolent stare. In the charge of the muscular Los Angeles County sheriff who ushered her into the court, Anna seemed docile and fragile. Part of Laura wanted to gloat; to say it served the woman right was a definite understatement. But part of her was wrung by pity. It disturbed her, this evidence of wreckage, of waste, the ruin of what could've been a fulfilling life.

The memory of how near Anna had come to robbing Steele of his was enough to banish pity for good.

Besides, there was a more worthy object to whom to direct it: the silver-haired man seated just behind Anna. He'd stretched out a trembling hand, reaching for her, until the younger man beside him gently pulled his arm back.

Laura nudged Steele. "Walter Patton?"

He followed the direction of her gaze. "Apparently." His eyes narrowed. "Also Clayton Endicott, I presume."

There wasn't time for more. The bailiff had stepped to his place and was calling the court into session. Anna's trial was underway.

Of the preliminaries, Laura would never recall much. Her focus had shifted to Steele. Fractures were appearing in his icy calm: not wide, not visible to anyone else, she was fairly sure, but unmistakable to her.

Two weeks prior she would've leaned into him just the slightest bit to remind him of her presence. Or she might have slipped her hand into his. By then both options were impossible. Steele would've construed them as a nullification of their Cannes agreement, a misconception she couldn't afford to encourage. One step in that direction, and she'd forfeit her credibility completely. It was way too early in the game to concede—or even acknowledge that she'd been a tad hasty in conceiving the pact. But for the first time she wondered if she hadn't set limits on their relationship that she'd come to regret later.

In the meantime Anna had risen to her feet, Endicott at her left elbow. She'd already been sworn in and the judge was reading the formal indictment in a dry but surprisingly compelling voice. There were lesser charges in addition to the murder count, nothing out of the ordinary.

"And the defendant pleads?" The judge's upward glance was on Endicott.

Endicott's shoulders lifted as he inhaled, preparing to answer.

"Guilty, Your Honor," said Anna.

A sough rippled through the room: the sound of sixty-odd, simultaneous gasps. Steele flung his head up and stiffened.

That was the extent of the reaction, unlike a TV show, where dramatic license would've painted a scene of general pandemonium. Laura had been in court often enough to know that real-life judges outlined rules of conduct for spectators at the beginning of the proceedings—no talking, no outbursts of any kind—and enforced them. And everyone was obeying. Even Patton, whose face was buried in his hands, had remained quiet.

"Permission to approach the bench, Your Honor," Endicott said urgently.

"In a minute, Counselor," the judge replied. He measured Anna with his gaze. "Mrs. Marleau, you're aware that you've altered the plea originally entered by your attorney."

"I'm aware."

"You're pleading it regardless? And waiving your right to a trial?"

"I am."

"This isn't a dress rehearsal. Once you've made the decision, there's no unmaking it, at least not in my courtroom. Do you understand?"

"I do." The response was low, but very clear.

The judge didn't shrug, but his manner suggested he would have if he weren't on the bench. "No reason to approach, Mr. Endicott. The defendant having entered a guilty plea, I'm dismissing the jurors and adjourning. Mrs. Marleau is herewith remanded to the custody of the Los Angeles County Sheriff to await sentencing. That's all, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your service."

It was over. Quietly, immediately, the sheriff crossed to Anna's side to handcuff her and take her away. The jury filed out. The room emptied as spectators gathered up purses and briefcases and departed in twos and threes.

Bewildered, Laura turned to Steele. "What just happened here?"

He was staring at the door through which Anna and the sheriff had disappeared. "I wish I knew."

It was out in the hallway waiting for the elevator that they ended up within a few feet of Walter Patton without meaning to do so.

He was shuffling forward on Endicott's arm, still prey to the debility that had gripped him in the courtroom. Maybe more. At first the two men were so deep in conversation, Patton speaking, Endicott listening, that they didn't notice Steele and Laura. Then they did. It looked as if Patton asked a question, too quietly to be overhead.

But one word of Endicott's answer was audible: "…_Steele_."

Patton froze. His eyes sought Steele's. In them was a combination of grief and fury so potent it fairly smote the air around them. If it could've been converted into physical force, Steele would've been prone on the floor.

And Steele took it. Shoulders back, tall and erect, he stood unapologetic, letting Patton look. The only hint of emotion Laura could see was the almost imperceptible flare of his nostrils, but it was enough to tell her he was as angry as Patton.

Behind Patton and Endicott the elevator doors slid open, cleaving the moment in two. She'd moved to follow the other men inside, but Steele caught her arm. "Let them go ahead, Laura."

So they'd waited for the next car. When it finally deposited them on the lobby level, Patton and the lawyer were nowhere in sight.

She'd invested a lot of time afterwards in analyzing the look that had traveled between them, the men who'd loved Anna. Patton's motivation was obvious, of course. But what about Steele's? Was he blaming Patton for subsidizing Anna's defense, thus putting Laura, the agency and Steele himself in jeopardy? Was it the instinctive hostility that smoldered between two men who'd competed for the same woman? Or was it an even deeper antagonism because, though by far the younger and handsomer, Steele had lost her to Patton's fortune? Because Anna had been willing to murder Steele in order to hang onto the money, all the while claiming she lov--

"--finished reading it, aren't you?" Remington said.

His voice snapped her back to the present. "Huh?"

He squeezed her foot. "I'll have it back, if you're through."

She stared at him blankly.

"Laura? The paper?"

"Oh." She grabbed it up. "Give me a sec."

Hastily she skimmed the remaining paragraphs. Apart from a capsule biography, there was no definite information. The funeral's date and location were yet to be determined. Unnamed national and state dignitaries would be in attendance. The will would be read soon afterward; Patton had left no direct heirs. The identity or identities of his beneficiaries was unknown.

Neither Lydia Van Owen nor Anna Simpson Marleau was mentioned.

Passing the paper back to him, she tried for a casual note, a little wary of his reaction on the one hand, wanting to spare his feelings on the other. "It doesn't say anything about--"

Remington raised his head. "—her," he supplied. "I'd noticed."

"Funny, don't you think? It's the kind of thing the press would ordinarily jump on."

"Not necessarily. Not when you're writing about Walter Patton, whose power may extend beyond the grave." He must've felt the involuntary shiver his words evoked from her, because he squeezed her foot again. "Figuratively, my love. Merely speaking figuratively."

"Which means the story dies with him?"

"That surprises you?"

"The extremely rich do live differently than the rest of us," she said wryly.

"That's not it. Well, yes, it is, but what I meant was…he'd already seen to it while he was alive. Do you remember any articles or interviews where he spoke of her? During or after the trial?"

"Come to think of it, I don't."

"It was as if they'd never been engaged, as if she'd never existed."

"So he buried it, as far as the public was concerned. In private, too?"

"It's what a man does. It's the only way to survive that sort of betrayal."

"I know." She did know: in the wake of the destruction Anna had caused, she'd watched him do that very thing, astonished afresh at his toughness and resiliency. " 'Buried and long forgotten'," she murmured.

She was repeating something he'd said months ago, while they were in Monte Carlo, and he was filling in the background of his relationship with Anna. The softness of his eyes told her that he understood the reference. "Not without a great deal of help," he replied. "But yes…buried and forgotten." And he touched his index finger to his lips and pressed it to the back of her hand.

Then he muttered something she didn't quite catch. "What was that?" she said.

It seemed as if he was about to say something, but changed his mind. "Nothing." Tossing the paper aside, he removed her feet from his lap, rose and stretched. "I'll need a snack to tide me over, or I'll never make it to dinner time. Care for something from room service?"

She declined the offer and listened while he strolled into the bedroom, searched for the menu and made the call. All the time she was thinking about that comment he'd made under his breath. If she'd heard what she thought she had, it was out of character for her husband, whose anger, except for one notable exception, rarely hardened into lasting enmity.

For it had sounded suspiciously like he'd said, "But never forgiven."

TO BE CONTINUED


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The Steeles flew home to Los Angeles rather regretfully on the twenty-eighth of December. If it weren't for a black-tie New Year's Eve gala they were obligated to attend, they could easily have been persuaded to extend their London stay by a week. Remington, in particular, found it hard to tear himself away from Robbie Dalgleish's commercial design company, Graffix, as well as Robbie's personal studio. His cousin was making an excellent living as an artist. Remington was filled with admiration, if a trifle envious.

Mildred had been on her own in the office since the day after Christmas—her vacation had begun and ended before theirs—so her greeting held even more enthusiasm than usual. "Hi, kids! Have a good time in London?"

"Marvelous," said Remington. "Best Christmas ever."

"It _was_ pretty wonderful," added Laura. She gazed at Mildred encouragingly. "So? How did Bumpers like Seattle?"

It was six months since Harrison Bumpers, her former colleague from the IRS fraud squad, had transferred to the West Coast to rekindle their romance. Even so, Mildred's smile still held a lingering shyness. "Fit right in. Turns out we needed him, too. Chuck's never been any good at carving a turkey."

"I take it he got on with Chuck and Eunice," commented Remington.

"Chuck's ready for a new brother-in-law. My sister? Not so much."

"She didn't like Bumpers?" Laura said wonderingly. "How could anyone not like Bumpers?"

"Boss! We're talking Eunice here, remember? Anyhow, Suzy was there with baby Heather, so Eunice spent most of her time playing grandma. Not that we minded. It left us more time to…explore…if you know what I mean." Mildred gave a suggestive shimmy.

"Laura, are you hearing this? I'm shocked!" exclaimed Remington.

"Sightseeing, chief! I meant sightseeing!"

"I'm sure you did. But which sights, eh? That's the question."

Since the exchange held so much potential for embarrassment—and because it was impossible to get the better of Remington once he was launched in full innuendo mode—Mildred apparently thought it wiser to change the subject. Besides, she wanted full details as to how their Christmas gifts to one another had gone over. She'd been in on both secrets, and as anxious for them to succeed the Steeles had been.

"Got room for one more, chief?" she asked as Remington wrapped up his side of the tale.

"One more?"

"One more present!" From behind her desk, Mildred produced a cylinder of heavy cardboard, the kind used for storing posters or architectural plans. "This came yesterday. Special delivery."

At the sight of it, a lopsided grin had broken out on Remington's face. He directed a meaningful glance at Laura.

"Don't look at me, Mr. Steele," she replied.

"Are you just gonna stare at it?" Mildred demanded. "Or are you gonna open it?"

Dutifully the Steeles trooped in her wake into Remington's office. The tube yielded a rolled-up length of canvas whose thickness told them it was a painting. With Laura holding one end, Remington slowly unfurled it, smoothing it out on the surface of his desk until it was completely flat.

From a misty background a woman gazed back at them, cool gray eyes in an aristocratic face, smooth waves of blonde hair falling to her shoulders. The strapless gown revealed the fortune in gems around her slender throat.

It was the portrait of Anna Simpson they'd last seen hanging in The Walter Patton Collection at the County Museum.

* * *

"We received a request from the executor of Walter's estate, asking us to remove the portrait from the exhibit and send it to their office," said Caroline Welles. "A month ago. Or was it two? Of course we packed it up and delivered it right away."

She had changed little since she'd first hired the Steeles to install security for the newly assembled Walter Patton Collection three years before. They were fortunate enough to catch her, inevitable cigarette in her hand, in her office at the museum—an unusual place for her to be over the holidays, she'd confided. But organizing the upcoming New Year's charity gala in her capacity as museum board president had pre-empted her customary two months in Bermuda. She sounded a little rueful as she said it. Since it was to attend the same event that Laura and Remington had returned from London, Laura sympathized with the feeling.

It was her idea to contact Mrs. Welles, once the shock of the canvas' appearance had worn off a little. That had taken almost fifteen seconds by the clock, during which she and Remington stared at each other in unbroken silence. She was positive that the incredulity she saw in his eyes was an exact reflection of her own.

She was first to recover her ability to speak. "This must be some kind of joke."

"If it is, it's an especially unfunny one," Remington had replied. There was an edge of anger to his voice, fairly well controlled, but audible to her.

"That goes without saying." She'd picked up the cardboard tube and examined the inside for any clues, then turned it upside down and shook it for good measure. Nothing. She raised her head and met his eyes again.

He'd responded by rolling up the canvas with a carelessness unusual in him and holding it out to her. "I suggest we get to the bottom of the mystery. And quick."

Now, seated opposite Caroline Welles, he was trying discreetly to fan away some of the cigarette smoke wafting in his direction. "Odd that the request came from the executor, wasn't it? Given the timing? Patton only died last week."

"Yes, under ordinary circumstances. Take direction about his personal business from anyone but Walter himself? Out of the question. But I knew—we all knew—he was past making his own decisions by that point. Too ill, poor dear."

'What was his illness, Mrs. Welles?" asked Laura. "The news coverage has been a little vague."

"Brain tumor. He gave up his power of attorney back in the summer because of it. Faced the fact that his condition would only deteriorate and did his best to put his affairs in order. Very clear-sighted of him, I thought."

'What about the nature of the request itself?" Laura said. "Isn't it rather unusual for a donor to renege on a gift? Especially after all this time?"

"It's been my experience that both donor and recipient are bound by contractual obligations that are difficult to dissolve," added Remington.

"You're right, Mr. Steele. But-" Mrs. Welles hesitated. Then, blowing out a long jet of smoke, she said, "I don't suppose there's any harm in telling you the truth. We hung that portrait at Walter's insistence. You might even say it was a condition of his donating the collection in the first place."

The Steeles checked one another's reactions. "I'm not sure we're following you," said Remington.

"My dears, please. It's a nice little daub in its way, but nothing compared to Walter's _real_ treasures. The artist's an unknown, the subject of no interest to the general public. It belonged over his living room fireplace or in his bedroom, not in the museum."

"Yet you included it anyway," remarked Laura.

"In exchange for those Turners and Vermeers? The Murillo? And there's more to come when his will is read, including a Modigliani that hasn't been exhibited since it was painted. Believe me, if the thing was a page from a child's coloring book, I would've made a place for it just to get my hands on the rest of the loot."

"A quid pro quo of sorts," said Remington.

"One does what one must, in this racket. Mind you, I've had reason to regret it. When that woman was convicted of murdering her ex-husband…well, you can imagine the embarrassment it caused. But take the portrait down? Walter wouldn't hear of it. Talk about reneging! He threatened to have our contract nullified in court _and_ cut the bequest to the museum from his will."

"What happened?" asked Laura.

"Nothing else for it but to keep the damned thing up. Walter wasn't in the habit of making idle threats. The flap died away after a while…and I don't suppose there was any lasting damage to our reputation, not really." Stubbing out her cigarette, Mrs. Welles eyed Remington with unabashed curiosity. "I can't imagine why the painting would've been handed on to you. Can you?"

"That, Mrs. Welles, is exactly what we're trying to figure out." And he got to his feet to bid her good-bye before she could press him any further for an answer.

He seemed lost in thought as they returned to the office. It was fine by Laura. She wanted time to mull over the new facts they'd just learned, to compare them with what they thought they knew about the situation, and try to make the pieces fit, if she could.

Beneath her reasoning process ran a little undercurrent of embarrassment. The information Caroline Welles had imparted about Anna's portrait seemed to underscore a personal failure of which she'd been unaware until this point. No, it didn't make sense that the painting, a good likeness but otherwise unremarkable, would've been displayed in a prestigious museum like the County. Maybe a Beverly Hills gallery. But among genuine masterpieces, the Constables, the Fragonard, the Alma-Tademas? It was like entering a shelter mutt in the Westminster Kennel Club dog show.

She should've spotted the inconsistency three years ago. Why hadn't she?

She hadn't been using her head, that was why.

But now that the mental block was removed, so to speak, other questions came flooding in. Whose decision had it been to force the County to accept the portrait, Anna's or Patton's? What was the reason behind it? What had he—or she—meant to accomplish?

She ran them by Remington.

It was clear that he, too, was considering them for the first time. "I always assumed it was part of the plan," he said. "Knock me off balance, make me think make my mind was playing tricks on me. Worked like a charm."

"But she didn't need the painting for that. Just a glimpse of her in the museum was enough to shake you up. And then bribing the orchestra leader to play your song later at Club 10."

"Are you asking me to guess what she was thinking? I haven't a clue."

"I'm saying it might not have been her idea at all. Sounds to me like it was Patton's." She frowned. "Though it's not far-fetched to suspect she manipulated him into it."

"A good bet she did. Not that it makes a difference. It won't tell us who sent the bloody thing to the office, or why."

He had a point. They could devote hours to speculation over the past, but it was doubtful they'd ever arrive at the truth. That was why she didn't confide to him the other idea running through her head, which was even more speculative and less likely to shed light on the matter at hand.

It was the symbolism of the thing. The portrait, once part of the Walter Patton Collection, as Anna herself had belonged to Walter Patton. Was that what it had stood for originally? Patton staking his claim for all of Los Angeles to see?

Now the portrait had been turned over to Remington. Directed right into his hands, one might even say.

And Laura didn't like the ramifications of that one little bit.

* * *

The theme of the County Museum Board's New Year's benefit was "Fire and Ice", which meant black tie for men, white or red gowns for the ladies. It was to be held at the Huntington Ritz Carlton—the very place where a devastatingly handsome, silver-tongued, slippery conman had stepped publicly into Remington Steele's shoes five years ago. Laura and Remington hadn't been back there together since.

Laura had her own ideas about commemorating that long-ago night, which, after all, had turned out to be of major significance in her life. The gown she'd worn had been destroyed along with the rest of her belongings in the explosion the Enterprow Foundation had set off in her old house. But it didn't take much effort to find a replacement, if not a replica: a strapless column of red satin, equally form-fitting, but with a thigh-high slit instead of a bodice ruffle and contrasting fabric detail. Guaranteed, every inch of it, to titillate her husband's imagination.

As soon as she finished dressing on the night of the ball, she knew she'd succeeded. "Let me look at you," he said, holding her away from him. His gaze traveled slowly from the hair she'd sleeked into a French twist to her high-heeled red sandals. "Good Lord. I'd no idea you planned to take the 'fire' option so literally."

Glowing under the admiration—not to mention the desire—in his eyes, she laughed and closed the distance between them. Her arms twined around his neck. "Is that your way of telling me I look 'hot'?"

"Positively incendiary. And potentially consuming. At least I hope so." The rest of his words were lost in the kiss she drew him into, one she knew would rock him to his toes.

It did. "Mm-hm," he said at length, sighing in that way that always signaled how much he'd enjoyed the taste and feel of her mouth. "Yes. Definitely ablaze. Although, with party time fast approaching, I suppose it's incumbent on us to bank the…embers…for now."

"You mean tamp down your coals?"

"In a manner of speaking."

She stretched up on tiptoe so that her lips just brushed his ear lobe. "Just as long as you promise to let me blow on them later," she said in a throaty whisper.

"Ignite the spark? Fan it back into flame?" he suggested.

"In a manner of speaking," she echoed him, and smiled.

His reply was a little hum of mingled assent and pleasure.

The two-level grand ballroom suite at the Ritz Carlton was appropriately festive, with ice sculptures in the reception room and a fire burning in the working fireplace in the dining-cum-ballroom. The orchestra was playing pre-dinner selections for the handful of couples who appeared more interested in dancing than circulating. Judging by the number of waiters weaving paths to and from the bar, wine and champagne were already flowing freely with plenty more to come.

The Steeles merged with the crowd. Really their goal was to work the room—subtly, discreetly, but work it all the same. For them the evening was less about dressing up, throwing confetti and drinking bubbly at midnight with Los Angeles' social elite than it was about generating recognition for the agency. The public relations expert they'd hired in September, after a run-in with Tony Roselli had temporarily trashed their reputation, had been adamant about it. "Choose the invitation with the most prestige and visibility and milk it for all it's worth," Stacy Adamski had said. "We've got a lot of forward momentum going, but now's not the time to sit back with your hands folded and wait for clients to come to you. You gotta get out there and make it happen."

Normally that was Remington's job. Although he'd achieved his ambition of becoming a working detective instead of a figurehead, his was still the public face of Remington Steele investigations. And, occasional bouts of jealousy over the media attention he received aside, Laura was happy to leave it up to him. In her list of favorite things to do, attending boring lunches, giving speeches and general, all-purpose shmoozing ranked at the bottom, just ahead of an IRS audit. Besides, people had made it clear years ago that he was the one they wanted to meet. To most of the outside world she was nothing but his subordinate, unremarkable, good only for drudge work, possibly not very bright, definitely boring.

Tonight was different; she wasn't sure why. Maybe it had something to do with the fact it was the first formal event they'd attended as an acknowledged couple. All at once, and without warning, she wasn't on the sidelines any longer. The proverbial "woman behind the man" was sharing the spotlight with the great Remington Steele.

The bigger surprise was that she was enjoying herself. Moving from group to group on Remington's arm, hearing him introduce her as "my wife and partner in the agency, Laura", keeping the conversational ball rolling, picking up his cues, throwing out her own, their verbal teamwork as seamless as the physical: it was heady stuff. "Unnamed associate"? "Unidentified female companion"? Not tonight. She was Laura Steele, detective in her own right. She could measure her rise in stature by the faces of those she was meeting. They were taking her seriously. They were listening to her with respect. There wasn't the least hint of suspicion that she might've slept her way into her position, or that her husband's indulgence had elevated her to it.

She couldn't believe how much fun it was.

Eventually she and Remington got separated, which was par for the course at this kind of affair. Even that wasn't as irritating as it had been before their marriage, when she would've been left to her own devices. People continued to approach and engage her in conversation. Some were acquaintances like William Westfield, the subject of an old investigation, as well as the only man prior to Tony Roselli who'd even remotely given Steele a run for the money in terms of her affection. The rest were strangers.

In the meantime she caught occasional glimpses of her husband fending off the advances of the latest predatory female he'd attracted. Apparently his wedding ring was no more a deterrent now than her actual presence beside him had been in the past. On the surface he looked like he was playing along: smiling that dazzling smile, head cocked at an angle perfectly calculated to convey flattering interest in whatever the woman was saying to him.

But Laura picked up subtle hints that told a different story. The unobtrusive shift in position to remove himself from a clutch that lasted too long. The amount of personal space he maintained. And—most endearing of all, in her opinion-the way he frequently scanned the room to search her out. His glance always met hers unerringly, proof of his constant awareness of exactly where she was and how far of a distance divided them. There was something simultaneously warm and reassuring, yet seductive, in that look.

They met up at last on the mezzanine level. With his hand resting on the small of her back they descended the staircase to the main floor. "Mr. and Mrs. Steele?" called a voice. "Look this way." Light from a flashbulb burst and faded.

"Wait here," Remington said to Laura. After a brief word with the photographer, he returned to her side and put his arms around her. "Smile, my love."

The camera whirred and clicked; the flash popped and popped again. For the final shot Remington leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. "Thanks very much, mate" he said, and the photographer, with a little salute to them, continued on his way.

The Steeles headed in the opposite direction. "What was all that?" demanded Laura.

"Mementoes of the evening. Would've been a shame to waste the opportunity. I've asked him to send us copies. Suitably framed, they'll make an excellent addition to the gallery in my office. Eh?" They had reached their table, and he pulled out her chair for her, adding in an undertone, "About time you were represented there."

Following the five-course dinner, dancing began in earnest. "I've been waiting for this, Laura," Remington announced as he took her into his embrace on the ballroom floor.

"Oh? Why?"

"It's my chance to remind those chaps there's no trespassing."

Her eyebrows went up. "What chaps would those be?"

"William Westfield, for one. I didn't care for the look in his eye when he was with you earlier."

"You were all the way across the room and his back was to you. How could you possibly tell-?"

"A man senses these things."

She looked searchingly into his face. What had brought this on? They'd thrashed it out months ago, the attraction she'd felt for William, in a single blazing row in London. It was the morning after she'd stopped him from carrying out the scheme a group of disgruntled miners had put together to murder the Earl of Claridge at his wedding reception. Still smarting over an insinuation Felicia had made, she'd unburdened herself of a few home truths. He'd taken them in predictable fashion—badly—and they were off. They'd covered a lot of ground, and cleared a lot of air, in that argument. In the process she'd made the point that nothing had happened between her and Westfield, for the same reason why it didn't, later, with Tony Roselli: she hadn't wanted it to. And Remington had finally accepted it as the truth.

Satisfied it was a gleam of mischief she saw, and not the combativeness that meant he was spoiling for a fight, she fingered his collar lightly. "William knows exactly where he stands with me. And so do you."

"Ah, but sometimes it's nice, now and again," he whispered, drawing her closer, "to hear you say it."

The orchestra ended its first number, and she remained in his arms for the second. "You chose red on purpose tonight, didn't you?" he asked, indicating her gown.

"I was wondering when you'd notice."

"I'd have had to be stricken blind not to. I appreciate the significance. It's because we've come back here, isn't it? The place where Remington Steele first took on flesh and blood."

"And where you acquired your permanent identity."

"Who'd have foreseen it at the time? Or imagined it would turn out like this? We both had so much to lose. And came damn near losing it. The illusion of your masculine superior threatening to unravel before your eyes…the murderous Kessler and Neff hot on my trail…Remington Steele saved both of us that night."

'"And now here we are again, swilling champagne and sampling caviar with the best of them." She laughed. "If they only knew."

"The secret of Remington Steele?"

"What our life is like. Here we are, part of this crowd, the image of glamour and sophistication. And all the while the reality is people shooting at us, and pain-staking legwork, and endless streams of paperwork, not to mention keeping our clients happy and paying the bills and the mortgage. And at the end of the day we go home to a cottage downtown instead of a penthouse apartment in a swanky neighborhood."

"The stuff of real life. I wouldn't want to live any other way." His words were charged with an unexpected fervency.

She tilted her head back, the better to study him. "You really wouldn't, would you?"

"Do you have to ask?"

"Probably not." She added softly, " 'A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou'."

"Quoting the poets tonight, are we, Mrs. Steele?"

"You've inspired me."

"Well, he's onto something. Given a choice, would I give up unlimited wealth and luxury-but without you-for the simple joys of work and play with you? Gladly."

"I know. You've already proven it. Remember back in the beginning, when you said we should give up the apartment, and live in the loft? Even though you hated it? I think I knew then that this was for real. My husband…Remington Steele."

It was funny: married more than six months, and that simple phrase still had the same power to evoke from him the breathtaking smile he'd worn when he heard it for the first time.

Much as Laura would've preferred to retain Remington as her sole dance partner for the night, they had obligations to fulfill, to their host and hostess, Herbert and Caroline Welles, to other members of the museum board, to acquaintances and business associates who came up to request a turn on the floor. With mutual reluctance they moved apart. It wasn't until five minutes of midnight that they were able to lay claim to each other again.

He was waiting for her with two flutes of champagne. "Ah, Laura, there you are. Ready to usher in the New Year?"

His surprise was obvious as she took both glasses from him and set them down on a nearby tray. "I had something more intoxicating than Veuve in mind," she said.

Wrapping her arms around him rendered further explanation unnecessary. In response, his hands slid up her back and pressed her more closely to his chest. When he bent his head to hers, she could feel the warmth of his breath against her lips. "They'll be starting the countdown any moment," he murmured.

Her gaze was on his mouth, its shape and texture; a little shiver of anticipation went through her at the thought of it driving down on hers. Dimly she registered the clamor around them, a combined hum of laughter and boisterous conversation, the occasional toot of a noisemaker and the rumble of a drum roll from the orchestra. But standing molded together, she and Remington had created an oasis of quiet that contained the two of them alone. It was the physical manifestation of the other intimacies—verbal, emotional-they'd shared tonight.

She kissed him, a light brush of her lips. "Mm-hm." By now the rest of the crowd was counting backwards from twenty. The lights dimmed.

His return kiss upped the pressure and lingered just a shade longer than hers. "The old year out…the new year in…"

"Good-bye, nineteen eighty-seven…" Warmth was unfurling, sending out tendrils from the pit of her stomach into the rest of her body. He smelled and tasted so good…

His eyes, heavy-lidded, had darkened to almost indigo. "Hello, nineteen eighty-eight…"

"Happy New Year!" roared the crowd. The band segued into "Auld Lang Syne."

Drowning in each other, the Steeles never heard it.

It was the kind of kiss in which they rarely indulged in front of other people. But the cheerful chaos around them afforded a weird kind of privacy. Absorbed in their personal celebrations, the potential audience was taking no notice of the Steeles.

It wouldn't have mattered to Laura anyway. She was drunk on the feel of his mouth, the strength of his arms lifting her slightly and fitting her tight against him, his hand cupping her head both to support it and to keep her lips sealed to his. And still it wasn't enough for her; with fistfuls of his tux jacket she pulled him even nearer, and then held him just as tightly, and kissed him in an intensity of heat and need and love equal to his.

The force of the embrace had set them revolving in a slow circle. As she withdrew from him for a second to take in much needed air, her attention caught on a column of white light at the edge of the balcony on the mezzanine level.

No, not light.

A woman. A tall, slim blonde in a white gown, the chandelier striking icy sparks from the crystal beading on its bodice, other gems—diamonds?—gleaming at her wrists and ears.

The sound of Laura's gasp brought Remington's head up. After a swift, wordless glance at her he followed the direction of her gaze. The widening of his eyes told her he was seeing what she was.

The woman was Anna Simpson.

TO BE CONTINUED


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

It took the combined manpower of Remington Steele Investigations six hours on January second to confirm that the Steeles eyes' hadn't played tricks on them on New Year's Eve.

Not that they hadn't made a concerted effort to seek Anna immediately. No sooner had they spotted her from the ballroom than Remington had grabbed Laura's hand. "Come on!"

But even as they'd dashed for the staircase, Anna had disappeared. One instant she was there; in the next, a knot of partygoers had obscured her from view. By the time the Steeles reached the second floor, it was too late. Though they scoured it from one end to the other, they hadn't turned up a single witness who could even remember Anna, let alone in which direction she had exited.

Questioning Caroline Welles was equally fruitless. "Good God!" she'd exclaimed. "Tell me you're joking! Of course she wasn't on the guest list. Who even knew she was out of prison? I can't imagine how the creature could've snuck in without an invitation."

Both Laura and Remington might have told her how easy it would've been for Anna, given her formidable acting ability and powers of persuasion, to charm her way past the gatekeepers Caroline had employed. But they'd refrained.

With all governmental offices closed for New Year's, they had to suffer through a day's delay in beginning to search for answers. Remington didn't handle it well. By now the initial shock had worn off; restless, chafing with impatience, he'd pestered Laura to speculate as to what glitch in the American justice system might've resulted in Anna's release. "I don't know!" she finally exclaimed in exasperation. "Maybe she decided to appeal the sentence. Although in that case, the prosecutor would've contacted us as witnesses for his side. I think. Maybe there was a procedural error somewhere. Or a hundred other things I've never heard of."

"I'd have thought the process would be absolutely straightforward when a defendant declares herself guilty in front of a judge and a packed courtroom."

"Oh, come on. It's not like we haven't seen this kind of thing before. Take 'Dancer', for example. It happens all the time."

He hadn't like that one little bit. "So she gets off with a slap on the wrist? Which means she's free to harass us. More hide-and-seek. More bloody games. Bad enough she pulled it off the first time. Now we're in for a personal re-enactment of _Vertigo_ all over again!"

Not sure what to say, Laura didn't comment. Probably it was for the best. Secretly she was relieved, and even a little pleased, to see him taking it this way, the same reaction the sight of the portrait had kindled: outrage, anger, contempt. She hoped it was a sign that no matter what tricks Anna had in store this time, he would remain impervious to them—and to her.

It was Mildred who achieved the breakthrough the next afternoon. "Bingo!" she shouted from the outer office. A moment later she was laying a computer print-out atop the pile of reports on Remington's coffee table. "Sentence commuted for good behavior on August twenty-eighth. Official release, September seventh."

Remington choked on a mouthful of coffee. "Good behavior--!"

Pounding him on the back with one hand, Laura held the other out to Mildred. "Let me see that." Mildred wasn't wrong, she discovered; there were the facts laid out in black and white. "Parole granted by Justice Lucius Harbottle of the Circuit Court of Appeals, Second District, by special session…" She trailed off. "Since when are murderers with life sentences eligible for parole? Or entitled to private hearings?"

Mildred shrugged. "Dunno.

"Someone financed by someone else with deep pockets?" Remington suggested with heavy sarcasm. "Walter Patton, perhaps? Who no doubt also arranged for the hearing."

"That doesn't make any sense," objected Laura.

"Wait a minute, Mrs. Steele. The chief might be onto something," Mildred said, and then hesitated. "Not sure what you're gonna think of this. But the state records show that Walter Patton and Anna Simpson were married by special license in early July."

The Steeles stared. "You've got to be kidding," said Laura.

"Married in the prison chapel, Chaplain DiSouza officiating. Want me to print a copy of the license?"

"Thanks, Mildred, that won't be necessary." Arms akimbo, Laura slowly paced Remington's office. She didn't realize she was doing it; her mind was engaged in sorting methodically through the little data they'd accumulated, shaping it into a bare skeleton they would flesh out later, after further digging. "All right. Let's work backwards for a minute. Anna shows up out of nowhere at an event we're attending three days after you receive the portrait. Walter Patton dies a week and half prior, but two months before his death, the executor of his estate orders said portrait removed from the County Musuem. According to Caroline Welles, Patton turned his power of attorney over to someone, maybe his executor, sometime in the summer--Mildred, can you check the date for us--?"

"I'm on it, boss."

Laura went on: "--Meanwhile, in the same time frame, Anna is paroled. Which leads to the starting point, which is their getting married in July." She paused and faced her husband. "Any nagging questions occur to you, Mr. Steele?"

"Beyond the obvious? Say, for example, how much did it cost Patton to purchase a city hall official to approve a marriage license? And a judge who'd grant parole for a cold-blooded murderess?"

"A peripheral issue at best. We aren't positive he was behind it, or that he did anything illegal."

"Well, then, what about this? When did their relationship resume? If it even ended in the first place."

"And if it did end, who made the first move towards reconciliation?"

"Power of attorney transferred to the executor on September second," put in Mildred, hustling back into the room.

"Do we know the executor is?" asked Remington.

"Case, Caldwell, Endicott and Cheney, PC," Mildred replied.

Laura blinked. "Clayton Endicott?"

"But he's a trial attorney," Remington reminded her. "From New York, wasn't it?"

"If it's the same Endicott. And if he is, where does he fit in?"

Coffee cup to his mouth, Remington lifted his shoulders. After a moment, Mildred, who was wearing that admiring, slightly bemused expression she always did when they were in full flow, copied him.

It took some prompting from him to move the discussion back on track. "The timeline, Laura. What does the date of the power of attorney tell you about it?"

"After their wedding and after parole was granted, but before her release. I don't know…Maybe he didn't trust her to handle his affairs?" Letting out a long sigh, she dropped down beside him on the sofa. "It's probably safe to conclude that Anna had the portrait sent to you."

"And that her appearance on New Year's Eve was no coincidence."

"You know what I'm beginning to think is more important? Why it all began in the first place. What happened in Walter Patton's life in June or July to set off the chain of events?"

"He was diagnosed with cancer?" offered Mildred.

"Could be. Check it out, okay? Though something tells me it's not quite that."

"Something?" With a fond half-smile, Remington slid an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. "That razor-sharp, finely honed investigative instinct." His hand moved to the nape of her neck, under her hair, and lightly kneaded the muscles there.

Mildred interrupted the little interlude by plopping into a chair opposite them. "Listen, you two. I shouldn't have to point this out, but if you ask me, you're missing the big picture here."

The Steeles glanced at each other and then back at her.

"The blonde barracuda! How're you gonna track her? And figure out what she's up to?"

"We're not." Remington's tone was grim.

"Come again, chief?"

"It's exactly what she expects. After all, we were so compliant in rising to the bait last time. Lesson learnt, ladies. This time, we wait."

"For what?" said Laura.

"For her to come to us." He looked penetratingly into her eyes; his arm tightened around her shoulders again. "Trust me. She will."

* * *

It took less than a week for Remington's prediction to come to pass.

The usual holiday-induced lull in business had persisted into the new year, and Laura was taking advantage of a quiet afternoon to close out the previous year's books before turning them over to the accountant. Deep in a profit and loss projection, she reached absently for the phone when it buzzed.

"Mrs. Steele?" Mildred sounded strangely subdued. "There's a visitor to see you."

The lapse in office protocol made Laura frown. Mildred knew the drill backwards and forwards: nobody was allowed to see either Steele without first identifying himself or herself at the reception desk. And since when did she use the handset to call inter-office? "Send them on in. Did you get a name?"

Silence from the other end. A note of impatience crept into Laura's voice. "Mildred?"

"I think you oughta come and see who it is, Mrs. Steele."

The reason for Mildred's unnatural quiet finally percolated. The cold feeling in Laura's stomach was also a clue. "It's Anna Patton, isn't it?"

"You got it."

"Okay. Give me a minute."

Once she'd replaced the receiver on its base, Laura sat very still. She hadn't expected this. In all the scenarios she'd imagined, she and Remington were confronting Anna together. But he was out in the Valley this afternoon, meeting with a property developer who was considering a security contract for his string of upscale retirement communities. Even if she surrendered to the sudden urge to call him, he wouldn't arrive in under an hour. The idea of detaining Anna that long filled her with revulsion.

Besides…wasn't it better this way? She could deal with Anna. It wasn't as if she hadn't penetrated the other woman's motivations, thwarted her convoluted scheming, before. If she went on the offensive now, she might succeed in warning Anna off permanently. And there would be no reason, need or opportunity to bring Remington into contact with Anna.

She would see to it.

So it was with lifted chin and a gleam of determination that she strode out of her office and straight over to Anna without wasting time on the social niceties. "Miss Simpson. Or should I call you"—one eyebrow raised in a worthy imitation of her husband, Laura let the pause drag out—"Mrs. Walter Patton?"

If the use of her married name surprised her, Anna didn't let on. Nor did she reply. Several seconds went by as she scrutinized Laura with unreadable gray eyes. There was nothing left of the pale, cowed Anna from the courtroom; she was again the polished beauty Laura had first encountered at the County Museum. And in her attitude was the same faint suggestion that in any competition between the two women, Laura couldn't possibly measure up.

Had it worked three years ago? If Laura were honest with herself, she had to acknowledge it had. While it hadn't exactly intimidated her into giving up Steele without a fight, it had provoked enough jealousy to blind her to what was really happening, at least in the beginning. She'd been thrown off her game, and Anna had taken full advantage. It wasn't an easy thing to remember, how that loss of concentration might have cost Steele his life.

Well, she was in control of the moment now. And she had no intention of letting it slip.

"Do," Anna said at last. "And I'll call you Mrs. Remington Steele."

"Do. Speaking of my husband, he's out of the office."

"_Were_ we speaking of him? In any case, your…estimable…secretary already informed me he's not here. No matter. I can just as easily tell you what I've come to say."

"I don't imagine you have anything to say that I or my husband would care to hear."

"No? There is, as it happens. Quite a lot."

Laura crossed her arms and shifted into a waiting posture. "I'm listening."

"I'd prefer to discuss it in private. Your office, perhaps?"

"Anything you propose to say to me, you can say in front of Miss Krebs."

For a second Anna's self-possession slipped by the tiniest fraction. But she recovered well. "That may not be wise."

"On the contrary. Given what you are, and what you've gotten away with, it's absolutely expedient." A direct hit. Laura could tell by the way Anna's lips compressed to a thin line.

"I assure you, I mean no harm."

Laura regarded her in silence.

A beat or two, and Anna broke it. "Never mind. Tell Remington Steele I need to see him. Alone." Reaching into her purse, she offered a business card. "He can reach me here. Tell him it's in his best interest not to ignore me."

Laura glanced at the card but made no move to take it.

At last the stirrings of anger began to manifest themselves in the cool gray eyes. "The only thing you'll achieve by this hostile attitude is putting him—and yourself—at risk. There are things I know about him, things the authorities would be very interested to hear. I suspect they'll also reflect quite badly on you, as well as your agency. Do I make myself clear?"

"Crystal," replied Laura. "You know he wouldn't come within fifty miles of you otherwise, so you're resorting to threats. I'm sure he'll be charmed."

A superior smile curved Anna's mouth. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the card onto Mildred's desk and went out.

Mildred had been sitting as still as if carved from wax during the taut exchange, and she only spoke when Anna had disappeared down the hall. "Boss…do you think she really has something that could hurt him?"

Laura was gazing through the glass doors, though by now Anna had passed well out of sight. "I'm sure of it."

"Do you think you'll be able to stop her?"

In one swift motion Laura turned and picked up the card. Ignoring Mildred's gasp, she tore it across and across until what was left resembled confetti. Then she met Mildred's eyes.

"If that woman ever gets near Mr. Steele again, it'll be over my dead body," she said.

* * *

Considering his reaction to the portrait and Anna's appearance on New Year's Eve, Remington remained remarkably even-tempered during Laura's account of her visit to the office. 'Well, at least we can say one thing," he commented at the conclusion. "She didn't mess about, leaving us in suspense for weeks on end. Concise and to the point. That's something to be grateful for."

Leaning against the kitchen's center island, Laura watched him add minced garlic to a copper skillet sizzling with olive oil. She'd spotted him there upon her arrival from work, and had made an immediate detour instead of heading upstairs to change. "Nice you can find a saving grace in the situation."

"Bound to be one, if you take the time to look." He reached for a bowl of sliced porcini mushrooms and slid them into the skillet, stirring for a few seconds before glancing at her. "Shook you up, did she?"

"It's not often I come face to face with a killer who narrowly missed adding the man I love to her list of victims."

"I'm familiar with the feeling."

Her eyes followed him as he set the pan on the Aga's cooktop, turned the heat down, unhooked another skillet, this one iron, from the circular rack suspended above the island. He was as gorgeous while cooking as he was pulling a heist, and for many of the same reasons, she always thought. To both activities he brought a specific choreography, a confidence, each step planned ahead of time but allowing room for a little spontaneity. He moved the same way, too, with deftness and economy and a fluid grace that went straight to her heart. It was what made hanging around the kitchen so attractive to her.

But this evening the pleasure wasn't enough to dilute the impression Anna had left in her mind. "It's kind of disturbing how she comes across," she said. "You'd expect her to be ashamed, to be…I don't know…_remorseful_, somehow. After all, we were standing right there when she shot Marleau. But she's not. It's as if none of it ever happened. It's--well--"

"—Monstrous?" he suggested.

"An accurate description." He was transferring slices of veal to the iron skillet now, and she added, "Smells wonderful. What is it?"

"_Vitello scaloppini alla funghi_. Translation--?" He paused with lifted eyebrow.

"Veal scaloppini with mushrooms," she replied, showing off the greater proficiency in Italian she'd acquired in Pramagiorre.

"Well done, my love. You were saying?"

"Oh. Anna. Very cold. But telling the truth, I expect, when she says she has something on you. Isn't she." It wasn't a question.

In the old days there would've only been a fifty-fifty possibility—maybe as little as sixty-forty—that he would've responded with honesty. Now he said, with no perceptible hesitation, "Very likely."

"Jean Murrell? Or Paul Fabrini?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. She was privy to the activities of both, as you're well aware."

Slipping off her shoes and jacket, she rolled up her sleeves and began to rinse the utensils and bowls that he—clean-as-you-go chef that he was—had stacked in the sink. For a few minutes they worked in silent harmony. "I must say, you're taking it better than I expected," she said.

"You know how much I hate that sort of suspense. Far better to have it in the open, no matter how bad it is, eh? Now we can begin to deal with her."

"How _are_ we going to deal with her?"

"I'll pay her a visit. Preferably tomorrow," he said.

This time the silence between them, though short, was uneasy. Specters of discord lurked beneath its surface.

"You can't be serious," she said.

"Oh, for God's sake." The veal and mushrooms safely simmering in the iron skillet, he set the other one in the sink a little harder than was necessary.

"What?"

He faced her. "Must you use that tone?"

"You really think it's a good idea, seeing her alone? Considering what happened last time?"

"I do, actually."

"Well, I don't. If you ask me, it's tantamount to suicide."

"She threatened you and the agency. You think I'll let her get away with that?"

"She didn't threaten the agency, she threatened you."

"It amounts to the same thing."

She had to admit it was true—or, at least, it was an argument she'd used on him in the past and couldn't turn around and discount now. "All the more reason for us to tackle her together," she said instead.

"And risk setting her off?" When she opened her mouth to protest, he cut her short. "Leave her to me, Laura. I know who she is, I know what she's capable of--"

"You didn't the last time you went up against her."

The only sign that she'd hit a nerve was the faint frown that drew his brows together. "All right, I deserve that," he said evenly. "But I think it's also fair to say I've learnt my lesson."

"I've told you before, I'm not putting the agency ahead of what's best for you. That's final."

"And I've told _you_ before, I'm not letting ghosts from my past pull the agency down and you with it."

It was the point in the conversation when the mood could've gone either way, intensifying into a quarrel or downshifting to an agreement to disagree. She could tell by the sigh Remington exhaled and the softening of his stance that he was choosing the latter.

"It seems we've reached an impasse," he said.

Following his lead, she squashed the retort she was more than ready to launch and looked up into his face. "I'm sorry. It's just…she scares me. I'm scared for you."

That statement brought about an effect that her vexation had failed to achieve: with one arm he encircled her waist and pulled her against him. His free hand moved a sheaf of hair from her shoulder and smoothed it back. He kissed her cheek, and the soft spot just behind her ear, and then folded her into a two-armed embrace, holding her tight. "I'm ready for her," he whispered. "I promise you, Laura. She won't catch me off guard again."

After dinner he closeted himself in the extra bedroom that shared duty as a studio for him and an exercise room for her. She wasn't sure if it was deliberate avoidance, his way of trying to prevent another outbreak of tension between them, or if he really had a project in hand. Personally glad of the breathing space, she left him to it.

At last she, too, went up for the night. He was lying in bed when she got to their room, wide awake, a single lamp burning on his nightstand, his right arm curled behind his head. "Did you set the alarm?" he asked.

"That's a job for the man of the house, Mr. Steele."

"That's what I love about you, Mrs. Steele. Your system for dividing the labor according to our respective roles. It's so democratic, so consistent, so inarbitrary--"

"I don't think inarbitrary's a word."

"Nonsense. Stop trying to change the subject."

"Anyway, you know what they say about what a married woman's entitled from her husband? 'What's yours is mine and what's mine is'--"

"—'mine'?"

"No. Mine."

Leaving him to puzzle that one out, she closed the bathroom door. It wasn't long before she was back in her Christmas pajamas. He lifted his left arm in invitation; she cuddled close to his side, head on his shoulder.

"Shall we have the light off?" he said.

"Your call."

The room darkened. He purposely shifted a little so that her feet, which often got cold at night, were tucked between his calves. It was just one of the myriad gestures and attentions that made up the fabric of deep cherishing within which he'd wrapped her over the course of their marriage. All without a fuss, too; casually, off-handedly, he simply did them.

He was quiet, but not altogether composed, and she thought maybe the situation with Anna was weighing on him in ways he hadn't let on. She'd just opened her mouth to ask when he said, "I've been wondering something, Laura. Perhaps it would be a good thing to lay it out where we can see it before matters with Anna go any farther."

"You mean before you go see her."

"It's got to be done. Ignoring her's not an option."

There was no arguing with him when he was so resolute. Besides, she didn't feel like it anymore. "I know."

"I've thought of some extra precautions to take. I'll insist we meet in a public place. And Fred can drop me off and pick me up."

"Good thinking."

"Except…it isn't only my physical safety you're worried about. Is it? Laura?" He sounded almost diffident. "Earlier, when you said you were scared for me, was it because…did you mean…?" Obviously he was struggling to find what he thought were the right words. At last he was able to manage a whole sentence. "Are you afraid of history repeating itself?"

"Are you asking if I'm afraid she'll come between us?"

"It wouldn't be the first time." His voice was very low.

"No. But that was a long time ago. And it's the last thing on my mind now, believe me."

She heard him take in a sharp breath. "I didn't want you to think--"

"I don't." By touch alone she sought his hand in the dark; when she found it, she put it against her cheek. "I know you love me, Remington."

A pause. He moved so that his forehead came to rest on hers. "Do you?" he whispered.

She nodded. "And I love you. So for my sake? Don't forget her pulling that gun and how close she came to shooting you. Don't forget how she used Gregor von Knauss until a chance for bigger money came along. Or the wreck she made of Walter Patton. Most of all, don't forget watching Raymond Marleau die."

By now both his arms were around her again, strong and sure. "I won't."

And then he said, for the second time that day: "I promise I'll handle her. You can leave her to me."

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

He returned from the meeting with Anna white-faced and shaking with anger.

As soon as he crossed the agency's threshold, Laura could see the signs. She was on her feet, through the open doorway of her office, and intercepting him before he'd made it through the reception area. Remington didn't say anything, only grabbed her hand and pulled her along with him into his office.

Once they were safely behind closed doors, she said, "That bad?"

"Worse," he replied. He'd braced his arms on the top of his desk and was leaning forward, chin dug into his chest. The urge to wrap him in her embrace was strong. She resisted it. Experience told her that at this stage, he would be more apt to shrug her off as an irritation than welcome her comfort. That would come later.

For a moment more he simply stood there, raggedly inhaling and exhaling, eyes closed. Then he turned his head to look at her. "Are you ready for this? She wants me back."

Laura stared. "Is she serious?"

"Deadly. It's what the blackmail's meant to accomplish."

Breath-taking audacity. And Laura was sure that she did, in fact, miss a few breaths because of it. "How she can think it's even possible--"

"Not only possible. Inevitable. Despite the fact that I'm a married man—an impediment she verbally dismantled in a matter of fifteen seconds, in terms particularly unflattering to you. It was all I could do not to wring her bloody neck."

"But everything she's done. How can she justify it, let alone defend it? Did she bother to try?"

Some semblance of calm regained, he straightened to his full height and settled on the edge of his desk. "Undertaken solely to advance our relationship. That's her explanation."

"_Shooting_ you was supposed to advance your relationship?"

"A momentary aberration, brought on by distress, when I wasn't as staunchly…supportive…of her actions as I should've been."

"Murdering Marleau?"

"He was an obstacle between us."

"Marriage to Walter Patton?"

"Ah, yes. That. Her path to a fortune she would later share with me once Marleau was out of the picture. She's succeeded, by the way. She told me she's inherited from Patton, not everything, but a substantial amount. Enough to make her one of the wealthiest widows in the world."

Laura was shaking her head slowly back and forth. "She has an answer for everything."

"Wait. You haven't heard the_ pièce de résistance_. The trial? Pleading guilty to first degree murder? A sacrifice she made to protect me, so I wouldn't have to testify. She did it, quote, 'for us', unquote."

The words were clipped, his tone ironic, devoid of emotion. That alone was enough to tell her that he was editing his account somehow for her benefit. Her imagination was quick to supply the reason: Anna sashaying towards him with sultry eyes, laying a hand on his sleeve, leaning in to press her lips to his—

Much as she hated it, she had to ask the question. "Did she--?"

Apparently he sensed how difficult it was for her to continue. "What?" he prompted.

"--Try anything?" She could feel the heat of a blush suffuse her from neck to hairline, and recognizing it made it worse. "Anything…physical?"

The expression of disgust that crossed his face did a lot to lighten her fears. "Good God, no. I wouldn't have stood for it. Though it didn't stop her from spouting a lot of romantic rubbish. Nauseating to hear, under the circumstances. And, Laura…she called me 'darling'."

He didn't have to spell it out for her. The endearment was one he especially disliked because of its inextricable connection in his memory with Anna's falseness and betrayal. He'd confided that to Laura in Monte Carlo, as well as his relief that they didn't normally use it with one another, except for his occasional, Irish-laced "me darlin' ". "I find your 'Mr. Steele' infinitely more seductive," he'd said. She had no doubt that being addressed as "darling" in this context had made his skin crawl.

"Well, you're back and you're safe. That's what matters," she said. "And, by the sound of things, unlikely to be persuaded by her act."

"I may have been a blind fool up to that moment, but I know what I saw in her eyes when she pointed that pistol at my heart. She'd have killed me if it weren't for you. Laura, I've never entertained the possibility before. But I'm beginning to wonder if she isn't insane."

She considered and dismissed it. "I don't think so. Tell me about the blackmail."

"Incentive for me, she calls it, to allow her the chance to 'win' me. Once she's satisfied we're together—really together—she'll turn the relevant documents over to me."

"Does she really have that kind of leverage?"

He gazed at her, shame-faced.

"Talk to me, Remington."

"I'm afraid she does."

She waited.

With a sigh, he took her hand in his again, this time to lead her to the sofa and sit her down beside him. "One of my more mundane thefts as Paul Fabrini. At least, it seemed so at the time. The heist pulled off successfully, the jewelry safely transferred to a reliable, discreet dealer with whom I had a longstanding relationship. Only--"

"Let me guess. You let Anna in on the secret."

"The relationship was so new…she was so admiring. Rather like you were, when we stole _The Five Nudes of Cairo_, or that time with the Pitkins--"

Laura found herself blushing again. She remembered the Pitkin incident all too well: her own loss of inhibition, both moral and sexual, and how the adrenaline rush generated by the successful heist had combined with, and become indistinguishable from, desire for him. Passionately and without regret, she would've made love to him on the living room sofa at Rossmore if they hadn't been interrupted.

"—It was stimulating, showing off what I could do."

"What does she have? Any concrete proof?"

"Some photographs of her posing with the jewelry. And…" The look of chagrin was more pronounced; his voice had faded away out of obvious reluctance to confess.

"Spit it out, Mr. Steele," she commanded.

"My plans. Notes, schematics, everything. In my handwriting."

She put her free hand to her forehead. "Oh, my God."

"I can't think how she got hold of them, if that's what you're wondering. Or why she'd have wanted them in the first place."

"Or why she brought them with her when she ran away from Monte Carlo? Or didn't mention she had them until now?" Her voice was rising in volume despite her best efforts to keep her cool. Withdrawing her hand from his, she got to her feet. "I've never in all these years known you to be so careless where your work was concerned."

"There's a first and last time for everything, Laura."

Agitation was driving her to move, not so much to put distance between them, but to work off some of the raw feeling she was building up. Because, leaving to one side the seriousness of the predicament he was in, a painful reality was plain to her: _she'd_ never inspired such overwhelming lust in her husband that he'd forgotten the professional standards that had made him one of the most successful thieves in Europe. But Anna had.

Maybe it was a sign Anna was the better suited to him, after all.

Re-focus, Laura, she told herself, and so she did, on the memory, lovingly treasured, of a Sunday afternoon in July, and Remington arriving from London just when she'd been convinced she'd driven him away and would never, ever, see him again, of the slow love he'd made to her for hours and hours, and the caress of his brogue as he whispered, "me angel…me beauty…me lovely little love…"

Mollified by the image, she turned back to him. "How much trouble would you be in if this was reported?"

Disquiet had clouded his brow. "The original owners never recovered the jewels. And the statute of limitations has yet to run out."

"Meaning, a lot of trouble."

"Possibly."

The downward emotional spiral of a few minutes prior was only temporary, thank goodness: her mind was ticking away dependably again. And the outlines of a bailout for him were beginning to take shape. "Don't tell me you're comfortable with the situation as it stands. Leaving Anna with the upper hand," she said.

"Of course not. But I don't see an alternative, do you?"

"Isn't it obvious? I'm surprised you haven't suggested it yourself. We'll steal the evidence from her."

Immediately he countered with an objection, she wasn't sure what, since she didn't linger to listen to it. "Better get cracking on the plans, Mr. Steele," she threw over her shoulder as she headed for her office. "I'd advise sooner rather than later."

"Laura--" In three long strides he caught up to her and took her in his arms. It struck her from the way he handled her that he'd deliberately restrained himself from doing so until that moment.

The blue eyes looked intently into hers, and she could've sworn he saw through her to the unfavorable comparison she'd made between herself and Anna. "I hated it, being with her today," he said. "I couldn't get wait to get away. It was like handling something poisonous, a scorpion, or a—a snake."

She hadn't realized how much she needed to hear the words until he'd said them. He seemed, in his turn, to need to touch her. Resting against him, she let him stroke her hair and run his hands lightly along her shoulders and down her arms. Then she captured his hands in hers and held them while she spoke.

"Well, we're going to neutralize the poison before she can strike again."

* * *

By noon of the third day of surveillance outside the Rexford Palms Hotel, Laura was a lot less enthusiastic about her idea than she'd been at the outset.

It wasn't that her determination to avert the threat to Remington had diminished. And she was just as certain that the risk involved would be worth it, if it yielded those photos and papers. Without them, what did Anna have, if she tried to turn him in? It would be the word of a convicted felon against that of Remington Steele. A felon with a vested interest in avenging herself on the man who'd witnessed her crime.

No, Laura's frustration lay with Anna's failure so far to cooperate. In the twenty-eight hours Laura had been watching the hotel, she hadn't so much as stuck one foot outside. And unless she cleared out of the Palms' luxury penthouse for at least an hour, Remington would never be able to slip inside and search it.

It had been a surprise to find Anna was living at the Palms, rather than the Pacific Palisades mansion Laura remembered from three years ago. Walter Patton had sold the house as soon as Anna was convicted of murder, or so Anna had told Remington. The Pattons had divided the brief months following Anna's release from prison between the Palms and a beachfront estate north of Malibu. After a covert assessment of both locations with an eye towards breaking and entering, Remington had declared them "potentially tricky, but not impossible."

Even so, he wasn't entirely convinced that attempting to steal back the evidence of that seven-year-old theft wasn't a waste of time. And he'd been quick to point out a major drawback in their plan. "It lacks the element of surprise," he'd said. "Much as I wish it weren't the case, Anna knows me well. Perhaps too well for our purposes. This is exactly the step she'll expect me to take, Laura."

She had to admit she'd had the same reservations. It had also occurred to her that Patton had owned a number of homes throughout the world that now belonged to Anna. For all they knew Anna could've secreted the photos and plans in any one of them, or even a safe deposit box. But the Steeles had to start the process of elimination somewhere, and the smart move was to do it here, closest to home.

With a sigh she wiggled in the Rabbit's front seat in hope of relief from the tingling pins and needles in her legs. Her scalp was sweating beneath the ball cap—a souvenir of their adventure at the Golden Dugout Baseball Camp—into which she'd tucked her ponytail. The weather today was really too warm for it. But paired with oversized sunglasses, it formed an adequate disguise, since Anna most likely wouldn't be watching for her anyway. To be on the safe side, she'd chosen a different section of the parking lot as a vantage point of the hotel entrance each day.

The ringing of the mobile phone provided a welcome distraction. "Mrs. Steele," her husband reproved her from the other end of the line. "You're fidgeting."

"How did you--?" She glanced around, but the agency limo wasn't in sight. "Where are you?"

"Same place we have been, the cul-de-sac across the way. At the moment I'm only picturing you in my mind's eye, but it's the next best thing to being there, eh?"

"You'll have to elaborate on that later, Mr. Steele," she said, smiling. "How's Mildred holding up?"

"Let's find out. Mildred, how are you holding up?"

"Great, Mrs. Steele!" came Mildred's voice, albeit at a remove.

"You see, Laura?" said Remington. "The same trouper as always, despite the long hours on stakeout. No doubt she'll be a splendid lookout when the time comes."

A black Jaguar convertible had swept up the drive; Laura watched idly as it pulled to a stop, as sleek and powerful as its namesake, beneath the hotel canopy. The man who sprang through the driver's side door the porter held open for him was vaguely familiar. "_If _the time comes. What's the matter with that woman? Does she spend her life sitting around her hotel room?"

"Ah, but the penthouse is more than a hotel room, just as the Rexford Palms is more than a hotel. She has maid service, housekeeping, laundry service, catered meals, a spa and sauna, a gym, a hairdresser's and exclusive boutiques all under one roof. What more could a lady of leisure ask?"

"So basically you're saying she'll never want to leave? Now you tell me."

"We could consider smoking her out somehow. Think. What were some of our more successful strategies in the past? Perhaps the _Gaslight_ treatment, à la Artie Wayne? Make her believe her safety's at risk if she stays? Or--"

"Hold that thought, Mr. Steele." Laura leaned forward in her seat. A man and woman were coming into view as they approached the lobby doors from the inside. A moment later, they were on the pavement, affording her first good look at them. "Here she is. And you're never going to guess who she's with."

"Who?"

"Clayton Endicott. And"—with a hand on the Jag's passenger door, Endicott was pressing a lingering kiss on Anna's lips—"from the looks of things, there's more between them than a lawyer-client relationship. So much for mourning her dear, departed husband." While she talked, Laura had keyed the Rabbit's ignition and shifted into gear. "Better stand by. They'll be on the move in a minute. Watch for a black Jag with the top down."

"Right," she heard her husband say. "Fred--"

Smoothly the Jag slid from the half-circle boulevard before the hotel and began to accelerate down the drive. Laura allowed them the requisite two car length's head start before cruising out behind them. Expert at tailing as she was, she would maintain the perfect speed that would prevent them spotting her on the one hand, and her losing them on the other. At this point in her career it was second nature, a skill she exercised without much thought.

With the phone cradled in the hollow between her neck and shoulder, she announced, "Showtime, Mr. Steele! I'll see you back at the office. Oh, and good luck."

"Luck has nothing to do with it, as you well know." Just before he hung up he added in a very different tone, "Be careful, me darlin'."

Following the Jag onto Stone Canyon drive, she had a glimpse of the limo waiting to make the left turn that would carry Remington and Mildred to the Palms. From this point the execution of their plan would be in Remington's hands; Mildred would basically act as a lookout and messenger, standing by at one of the hotel pay phones, while Laura kept an eye on Anna's whereabouts. As for the details of how he would sneak past security guards, neutralize any alarms and enter the penthouse undetected, Laura hadn't asked. She could trust that he had them under control.

Endicott headed onto the 405, but only took it as far as Santa Monica, where he parked in front of an office building on Wilshire. Not enough of a distance from the hotel for Laura's comfort. She would've preferred at least an hour's drive between Anna and the Palms, for Remington's sake. But there was no choice but to make the best of it. She circled the block, pulled into a space six cars behind the Jag and settled down to wait.

It turned out to be an uneventful afternoon. There was one episode that caused her a few moments' alarm, Endicott and Anna emerging from the office building a mere twenty minutes after their arrival. But it was only to head down Santa Monica Boulevard for a seafood restaurant close to the ocean. Even in so short an interval, Laura thought she again spotted signs in the couple of an intimacy that went beyond a supposed business relationship.

What was it with Anna and men? From the little Laura knew of her, she seemed to be following a habitual pattern. Not only was she married to Raymond Marleau when Remington first met her in his guise as Paul Fabrini in Monte Carlo, she was conducting an affair with a wealthy Austrian banker. And in America three years ago, engaged to Walter Patton, still locked in a twisted alliance with Marleau, she hadn't scrupled to draw Remington into the troika again. Now Patton was freshly in his grave; Anna might possibly have a man on the side in Endicott. Was that how Endicott fit in? And if it was, why the overture to Remington, the full-bore assault on his affections? The calculated squeeze of blackmail to pin him down where she wanted him?

The mindset was a completely foreign one to Laura. And she felt herself shrinking from the effort it would take to unlock the puzzle. Thinking the way Anna thought, foreseeing her moves before she made them: it required an enormous leap of imagination operating in tandem with her rational, analytical side. It hadn't been easy last time, especially on her emotions. Now it would be so much worse, adding into the mix what she'd learned since about Remington's relationship with Anna in Monte Carlo, how Anna had seduced him, used him for his expertise in establishing false identities, then heartlessly faked her own death and disappeared from his life. Was she, Laura, up for it, considering how repugnant she'd found it three years ago? Did she really want to put herself in that woman's head again, so to speak?

The only possible inducement there could be was protecting her husband.

At a few minutes to two o'clock, Mildred called the Rabbit's mobile. "The chief said to tell you he's tossed the place as best he can without your able assistance," she reported. "We're heading back to the office in a few minutes."

"Thanks. Where is he now?"

"Said he had a few questions he wanted to ask in an official capacity."

"Did he find anything in the penthouse?"

"Not what you're looking for, per se, but he said there're other developments you'd find interesting. And he hopes you're aroused…with curiosity--?"

"Never mind, Mildred, it's just one of Mr. Steele's little jokes. I'm at Santa Monica beach, so I should be there in a bit."

Though he didn't say the words aloud, there was a distinct hint of an "I-told-you-so" in Remington's expression as they regrouped at the agency. "I shouldn't wonder if this is exactly the result Anna meant to achieve," he said. "Throwing out the hook simply for the amusement of watching us chase the bait. The hotel's too obvious a place to look."

Laura wasn't quite ready to concede the point. "She couldn't have guessed you'd pull as gutsy a move as looking in broad daylight! Or could she?"

"I've always had a reputation for a certain amount of…audacity, Laura. Well-deserved, I might add."

She rolled her eyes; he twinkled back at her, unabashed, cocky.

He went on: "I'm not saying it was a wasted trip. At least we can scratch it off the list of places to search. And it's probably a good thing we did it when we did. It appears the Widow Patton doesn't intend to maintain her residence there much longer."

Arrested, Laura asked, "What makes you say that?"

"There's very little of personal significance that I could see. Her clothes, toiletries, that's it. Nothing of Patton's at all. Either widowhood's persuaded her to adopt a more Spartan lifestyle, or she's ready to clear off."

She smiled. As usual, he was spinning it out, like a showman, like a storyteller, transforming the cut-and-dried details into a suspenseful narrative. Once upon a time she would've fumed with impatience, wishing he'd cut to the chase, maybe demanding it of him. Now she let him proceed at his own pace. He would get there, and the dénouement would be worth the wait.

Faithful to her cue, she threw out the leading question. "You checked it out with the hotel?"

"Oh, yes, I approached the manager in my role as Charles Kady-Haven, equerry to Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, arranging accommodations in advance of their Royal Highnesses' upcoming trip to California."

"I trust he was suitably impressed."

"Enough to inform me that the current occupant of the penthouse has opted not to renew his lease. It runs out at the end of the month."

There was a pause. At the base of Laura's spine that little prickle was beginning to awaken, the one that said they were onto something important, no matter that they weren't sure precisely what it was yet. The look in his eyes told her that either Remington was feeling it, too, or he'd picked up on her excitement, which was more or less the same thing.

"Might be interesting to discover if the Malibu house is in the same condition," she mused.

"Yes, wouldn't it?"

"It would even give us a chance to kill the proverbial two birds. Satisfy ourselves that the papers aren't hidden there, check it off the list." As she gazed up at him, a provocative smile curved her lips. "What are you doing tonight, Mr. Steele?

He let the surge of connection between them build for a moment or two before answering her. "A spot of clandestine work with my lovely bride, Mrs. Steele," he said.

* * *

It was just a little after sunset that Remington jimmied open the sliding glass door that led from the oceanfront deck of the Pattons' beach house and allowed Laura to slip inside ahead of him.

The house was part of a compound that lay in the curve of a natural inlet that effectively separated it from its nearest neighbors. The high bluffs enclosing it increased its air of privacy, almost isolation. The house itself was large, but low and rambling, edged on three sides with two-tiered decking and gardens filled with _rosa rugosa_, sage, and artemisia. There was a guest house—the main house all over again, but in miniature—a garage, and two smaller outbuildings, one near the southern side of the inlet, the other closer to the water. From its side a long pier extended into the ocean.

Remington had pointed it out to Laura as they descended to the beach on foot from the side of the road where they'd parked the Rabbit. "Look there. It's dockage for the yacht. _The English Rose_, she said it's called." He was probably unaware of the bitterness that twisted his mouth on the name.

"What happened to it? Did they sell it?"

"It's most likely in San Diego. It's what she enjoys, cruising between here and there on the weekends. Drives back to her departure point, whichever it is. On the whole she prefers San Diego to Los Angeles. It's less glamorous, but she's more anonymous."

Laura had gazed at his averted profile. "Sounds like she confided a lot to you the other day."

"More than I care to know." His voice was cool, but when his eyes returned to hers, they softened into a smile. His hand had slid to the small of her back. "Onwards."

By the beams of their flashlights they advanced farther into the house. The impression Laura received was of white walls, gleaming floors of some kind of pale wood, and groupings of steel and glass and rattan furniture. Despite its emptiness, it didn't seem deserted, thanks to the evidence of recent occupancy: perishables in the refrigerator, clean dishes still stacked in the dishwasher. The life being lived here would resume in the near future.

The Steeles set to work. The lack of light was no hindrance to their progress, which was swift, silent and methodical. In under half an hour he was joining her in the master bedroom. "Nothing in either of the safes or the living room or study. You?"

She shook her head, then made a gesture that encompassed the closets and the bureaus ranged along the walls. "Her stuff is here. Lots of it. But it's the same as the hotel, nothing that might've belonged to her husband, here or in the other bedrooms." A tag end of a past conversation recalled itself, and she repeated it slowly to him. "Patton buried the story of what she'd done to Marleau. Remember you said that, the day we saw he'd died? Never mentioning her, acting like she'd never existed."

"Yes?"

"It strikes me that's what's she's doing with him."

In silence he looked at her somberly. And when he spoke at last, it was only to say, "Finished? Suppose we hit the guest house."

It was with a definite sense of diminished expectations that they headed towards the little house. Neither was surprised that they came up empty-handed. The small building at the edge of the beach turned out to be the boathouse, and rated no more than a cursory walkthrough. That left only the other shed.

In growing restiveness Laura trained the flashlight on the padlock so he could pick it. "It's a waste of time. Let's just go? It's too warm for this jumpsuit, and you must be dying in that leather jacket."

His skillful fingers never halted for a second. "Whatever happened to thoroughness, eh?" he wondered aloud. "The hallmark of the true detective? The quality that separates the men from the boys?"

"Shut up and just open the thing, all right?"

A wall of heat from inside the shed pressed against them as they entered. "Tin roof," Remington said, squinting upward. "No ventilation. You're right, it's damned uncomfortable in this jacket." He directed his light systematically around the walls and across the floor, revealing neatly coiled hoses, sprinklers, two bicycles and a variety of garden implements. The space had a dusty, disused look that suggested it hadn't been disturbed in several weeks.

It was Laura's turn to shine her light, only it was into his face. "Satisfied?"

"Perfectly. Let's call it a night, shall we?"

Starlight wasn't enough to guide them to the Rabbit, so Remington used his flashlight, now carefully shielded, to illuminate the way. In a few moments they were picking up southbound I-10.

Laura had collapsed gratefully into the passenger seat, trying to combat a sudden wave of depression. Part of it she put down to depletion of the adrenaline that had fueled her over the course of the day. The other part was pure disappointment. Rationally she'd recognized all along that it was a long shot, at best, the idea that they would recover the potentially damaging documents from Anna so easily. But at the same time she'd allowed herself to picture a positive outcome, the crisis resolved, Remington as safe from the other woman in physical terms as he seemed to be emotionally.

Instead they were almost back to square one, without leads, leverage, or a logical place to start over. She leaned her head against the seat back and sighed.

At the sound of it Remington removed his hand from the gear shift long enough to pick hers up and squeeze it. "Tired?"

"A little. Mostly discouraged."

"It hasn't escaped my notice, the lengths you've gone to on my behalf." His hand came to rest on her knee. "Have I told you how much I appreciate it?"

Absently she laced her fingers through his, her attention so centered on the problem that she didn't realize she'd done it. Nor had she really listened to him. "The thing is, we have so little to go on. For instance, we could search every one of the other houses she owns, Palm Beach, Paris, I forget where the others are--"

"Gstaad?" he offered. "Martha's Vineyard?"

"Right. All that time and expense, not to mention the planning, and there's a good chance we'd come up empty. A great chance, actually. And in the meantime, Anna's probably got some imaginary timetable she'll insist you meet." She glanced at him. "The floor's open. Any suggestions?"

He was frowning at the road ahead. "Safety deposit boxes? But then we'd have to break into the bank. Or banks, depending on how many she has."

She let him go on talking. But by now her focus was entirely inward, on that narrowing, spiraling feeling deep in her consciousness that meant a really great idea was forming just below the surface. It was akin to that moment in figuring a calculus equation, plugging in the final variable, anticipating the correct answer revealed in all its elegant symmetry.

"Laura…"

Yes: there it was. And it was simultaneously breathtaking in its boldness and daring, and frightening in its potential for danger.

It could be a stroke of genius.

"_Laura_…"

On the other hand, it would bring them into direct confrontation with what she most feared and lay on the line what she could least afford to lose.

But if they didn't act, she would lose it anyway. Wouldn't she?

"Laura!"

She turned to her husband to find him glaring at her. "You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?" he demanded. "Hm?"

She hadn't, but in her opinion it was a moot point. "I have a better idea," she said, pre-empting the tide of indignation he was ready to pour out. "I don't know why we didn't think of this before. Listen. Are you listening?"

His impatient gesture indicated that he was; his expression said he wasn't very happy about it.

"We're going to give Anna what she wants," she said. "You're going to tell her you're going back to her."

TO BE CONTINUED


	7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

A moment of perfect calm stretched out inside the Rabbit.

Then:

"_What_?" Remington shouted.

"You're going to tell Anna you're--"

"I heard you the first time. It's just I can't believe my ears!" He paused to take a deep breath. Not to get a handle on his temper, but to up the decibel level to a bellow. "What in bloody _hell_ are you thinking? Have you finally, irretrievably, taken leave of your senses?"

"Remington, I'm right here. You don't have to yell."

He sputtered something incoherent. Dim though the dash lights were, she could see that his face had flamed scarlet and that his knuckles had whitened with the hard grip he'd taken on the steering wheel. In the next instant he was snapping a glance over his shoulder at the traffic behind him and stomping on the accelerator. The Rabbit headed in a rightward trajectory towards the grassy verge of the highway.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I can't drive and fight with you at the same time. It's liable to get us both killed."

"Who says we're fighting?"

"I do."

Rocking hard, the Rabbit braked to a halt. In a single furious motion Remington cut its engine and turned to her. "Of all the illogical, inconsistent, misbegotten notions you've come up with--"

"If you'd listen to me a second--"

"—this takes the biscuit. I've never heard anything so asinine--"

"Would you just calm down?"

"—so harebrained, so patently absurd, so doomed to failure from the very inception--"

"Can I please get a word in edgewise here?"

"—in my entire life! Go back to Anna--!"

"I'm not suggesting you really go back to her. You only have to pretend you are."

"Splendid, thank you, obviously I understood what you meant. How you conceived of it to begin with—that's what floors me."

"Why not? Why not turn her--what did you call it? Romantic rubbish? Why not turn it to our advantage? Persuade her she's gotten under your skin in spite of yourself? Beat her at her own game?"

"But you're the one who didn't want me to go near her! It was dangerous, you said. Just the other day, in fact. You were afraid for me!"

"I still am. If you stick to public places when you take her out, you should be safe."

"Take her out? Public places--?" He was sputtering again. "You're expecting me to romance her?"

"Depends on how you're defining romance."

The meaning of the gesticulation with which he responded was unmistakable.

"Not quite," she said dryly. "I'm only human, after all. But a charm offensive…That'd do the trick, without crossing any lines we…wouldn't want you to cross."

A little of the belligerence was fading from his expression, but only a little. "She'd see through me in a second. You don't understand how I left things with her."

She laid a hand on his sleeve. "I think maybe I do. Actually, it could be a circumstance in our favor."

"Ultimatums? Unequivocal rejection?"

"Unless I miss my guess, she operates under the belief that the men she wants can't resist her, no matter how she treats them. If you show her you're softening…that she attracts you against your better judgment…it'll appeal to her vanity. It's a weakness, Mr. Steele. And what've you always told me about cons and weakness?"

"Once you've found the soft spot, the mark's seventy-five per cent in the bag."

"You gain her confidence…she turns over the papers. Or, failing that, we're in a much better position to find them than we are now."

"Ah, I see. We've planned it all out, have we? But you've overlooked one thing."

"What's that?"

"Anna may not be so easy a mark as you seem to imagine. She's masterminded a few scams in her day. The insurance fraud in Monte Carlo? Setting Marleau and me at each other's throats? Roping Walter Patton into marrying her? Mull those over before you start awarding us the victory, Mrs. Steele."

To her immense dissatisfaction, the conversation ended there. Remington made sure of it. Starting the car, he pulled back onto the road and sped southward fast and hard back to Windsor Square. On his face remained a frown that was doubtless intended to discourage her from talking to him.

It was only a setback, Laura thought. One of the less exalted but extremely valuable lessons she'd learned about marriage was that there was very little Remington would refuse to do for her when push came to shove. A strategic campaign waged long and discreetly would get her what she wanted when asking up front—or issuing a command—failed. And it usually yielded the added bonus that he was convinced it was his idea in the first place.

So she waited up for him while he showered, noting that he took twice his normal time to finish. His glance flicked to her immediately as he came out of the bathroom; aggravation was evident in the set of his mouth, the furrow still grooved between his brows.

He flung himself down in the chair next to the fireplace. "This plan of yours won't work, Laura," he announced.

"And how did you arrive at that conclusion?"

"Anna's seen us together. Have you forgotten? New Year's Eve. Kissing in full view of the room. Rather torridly, as I recall."

"So?"

"She'd have to be a simpleton to believe that her mere appearance, and one hour in her company, is enough to tempt me to throw you over for her. And we'd be even bigger simpletons if we tried it."

"Not necessarily. Not if we plan it right."

"She's too clever to be taken in by a barrage of flowers and candy and sweet nothings, even if I could bring myself to do it. There has to be another way."

"Maybe there is." She reflected on it, tapping her cheek thoughtfully with her forefinger. It didn't take long for the logical alternative to present itself. "I've got it. We'll pretend our marriage is in trouble."

His eyes narrowed in undisguised wariness. "I don't much care for the sound of that."

"Why not? It's always been one of our undercover specialties, the bickering couple on the verge of a break-up."

"Yes, but that was before we got married."

"That shouldn't get in our way. If anything, it'll make us more believable."

He didn't answer. Assuming his silence signaled acquiescence, or at least willingness to listen, she continued. "That kiss, for example. It should be fairly easy to explain if you put it into the right context." Her brain was sorting rapidly back through her memories of the "Fire and Ice" ball, scanning them for anything useful, and she lifted a hand to forestall him when it looked like he wanted to interrupt. Finally inspiration struck. "William Westfield."

"William Westfield?"

"He was at the ball. You teased me about him, pretended to be jealous."

"There was no pretense about it. I _was_ jealous. After all, you planned a rendezvous to Mexico with him once upon a time, despite the fact you and I were presumably committed, if not precisely together. Granted, it was only a pang or two--"

"But there I was, flirting with him in front of half of Los Angeles, flaunting him in your face."

"What?"

"It's why you kissed me at midnight. Purely territorial, a move to bring the wayward wife back into line. And to show your would-be rival you're a force to be reckoned with. That's what you'll tell Anna."

Ideas were flowing thick and fast now. Jazzed by the creative energy, she uncurled from her cross-legged position and scrambled off the bed to pace. "I think the whole business with Tony would be good material, too, don't you? You could take the same tack with it. Me distracted by another man on our honeymoon. Putting myself into compromising positions with him. For added effect, you could bring up the part where I kissed him on the train to Liverpool right in front of you."

He said nothing. Oblivious, she took another turn around the room. "And as if that wasn't bad enough, I left you in Menton before we'd been married three months. And last month I ran off to Pramagiorre without you. I even gave your ring back before I went."

"You gave me your ring for safekeeping. That's a far different thing."

His objection was so vehement that it made her pause for a second. She'd forgotten the effect the episode with her wedding ring had had on him. The funny thing was, it had started out as a simple mix-up. In keeping with her cover as a single woman on the case in Pramagiorre, she'd decided to leave the ring at home, a detail she'd missed until just before her flight departed Los Angeles. At almost the last minute she'd removed it with an injunction to Remington to bring it with him if she needed his help in Italy.

What she meant was that she'd call him if finding Ava Rivaro proved too difficult to handle on her own. Neither of them had dreamed of the circumstances as they'd actually occurred: her, alone in a guest room in Alessandro Castagnoli's mansion, suffering from the most excruciating stomach pains she'd ever experienced, brought on by the poison she'd been given; Remington appearing seemingly out of nowhere; the firmness of his embrace as he'd gathered her to him, the inexpressible comfort of his voice as he said, "I've got you, I've got you, it's all right, baby, I'm here."

Her ring had been one of the ploys he'd used in his fight to save her from the grip of the deadly sleep that was inexorably stealing over her. And the sight of him reaching into the pocket of his dinner jacket for it had, indeed, roused her a little. It was one of the few memories she retained from that night, Remington slipping the band on her finger and kissing her hand. "Back where it belongs, and not a moment too soon," he'd declared.

It wasn't until later that he'd haltingly explained how much it had shaken him, and why. From the very beginning he'd invested a lot of thought in her ring, right down to the choice of gems. Sapphires. The symbol of loyalty, constancy and faithfulness, he described it on the night of their engagement. Taking the ring from her at the airport had set off a frisson of superstitious dread in him, though he'd hesitated to describe it as a premonition. It seemed to him that she'd cast off her last link to his presence, however temporarily. He was forced to watch her venture into possibly hostile territory unprotected and alone.

Was it only fancy, a product of the Celtic imagination that was so much a part of him? Maybe. But she couldn't deny that the pattern of events seemed to prove him right. The worst had happened to her while they were separated. But when they reunited? They'd won. They'd escaped from Castagnoli. Remington had gotten her to the hospital in time. The poison hadn't killed her. She'd recovered.

Yes, she could understand his sensitivity on the subject of her ring. But now wasn't the time to indulge it, given their current predicament. "You and I know that," she replied. "But Anna doesn't have to. It all depends on how you spin it."

The line of his mouth was grimmer than ever. The blue eyes smoldered, ready to blaze up.

She missed the signs entirely. Once more she was in motion, her train of thought on track after the brief detour. "Now that I think of it, maybe we ought to stage a couple of fights, huh? Loud and public. I wonder if Pierre would let us do it at L'Ornate?" Pierre was Pierre Fumard, once a suspect in a case, now a friend, and the owner of an exclusive Beverly Hills restaurant. "Oh, and this would be good. I'll see if Stacie Adamski could use her contacts to get us a mention in a gossip column. Better dust off your Bob Peppler persona, Mr. Steele. But this time you'll want to take the gloves off, no holds barred. You've got a disloyal wife to deal with, and you're coming down on her with both feet. Hard."

Silence from Remington. For the first time it penetrated that he wasn't getting into the spirit of the thing as enthusiastically as he normally did. There was no exhilarating give-and-take, no one-upmanship, no spurring each other to come up with a smarter, better, more creative plan. He hadn't even supplied a movie annotation. He was acting like a total wet blanket.

Hands on hips, she turned to challenge him on it. And was thoroughly taken aback. For if ever a man was affronted in the fullest sense of the word, and showing it clearly, it was Remington Steele at that moment.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

"You think I'm going to treat my wife that way in front of other people, whether it's for show or not?" he said sharply. "You think I'm going to tell Anna about you and Westfield, or you and Roselli?"

"Why wouldn't you? Not only is it a great cover for you, it's the truth."

"Only the barest outline! And it makes you sound as if you're just like her!"

"What's the difference? I don't care what she thinks of me, as long as it gets you out from under her thumb."

"Well, I do, because you're a better woman than she is, and I won't have her imagining otherwise!"

He was shouting again. She flinched slightly, not from intimidation by his anger, but in surprise at his reaction. Suddenly she remembered that he'd knocked Norman Keyes off a hotel balcony in Las Hadas and beaten up Tony Roselli in a Glen Creagh dooryard for implying she was easy. And he'd done it well before they'd made love for the first time, let alone exchanged "I love you's".

Disconcerted, she crossed the room to sit on the ottoman on which he'd propped his feet. "Guess I got a little carried away."

"You can try and talk me to death all you like, Laura." The angry flush was still burning across his cheekbones. "It won't make me change my mind."

"I wasn't. I was going to ask what you think we should do."

"I don't know. We'll have to brainstorm a little longer until we hit on something. But I can tell you this much. Whatever we decide, it won't be what you just suggested."

"Okay."

Neither of them spoke for a beat or two. He'd taken the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, pinching it while he squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. Then he gave her a strained smile. "Sorry."

Her response was to pat his thigh affectionately before she rose and began to turn down the bed.

He followed much more slowly. Settled under the covers at last, he turned on his side away from her. Knowing him as well as she did, she recognized that the movement was less about shutting her out than it was drawing into himself. Sure enough, when she'd scooted upwards for a better position in which to mold herself to his back and slide her arms around him, he closed his hands over hers.

It was he who broke the silence for the final time. "I used to think that once I'd got you—once you were truly mine—our life would be clear sailing from then on," he said. "Little did I know." A pause. "Ah, damn. Why does it never get any easier?"

She couldn't tell him; she didn't know, either. But she could kiss his shoulder, and enfold him more tightly, and hold him while they fell asleep. So that was what she did.

* * *

The alarm went off at seven o'clock in the morning as usual, but Remington was already out of bed and gone.

That in itself was enough to tell Laura how the turmoil of the previous night was affecting him. He never willingly got up this early, depending on her to prod him towards his established routine of an hour at his drawing table before leaving for the agency. If he was there already, it was probably because he couldn't sleep and needed an escape from his thoughts.

He was there. And, by the looks of things, deeply immersed in what he was doing. With a swift glance upward through his lashes and a mumbled "good morning", he acknowledged her entrance and focused again on whatever was taking shape on the paper beneath his hands.

His incommunicativeness didn't bother her in the least. It was characteristic. Besides, they'd developed an unspoken compact about respecting one another's creative process over the months they'd shared the third bedroom in pursuit of their individual passions. On her side of the room she pushed a cassette into the tape deck, poised herself at the barre and waited for the first notes of the "Romance" from Mozart's piano concerto in D minor.

Soon she was just as absorbed as he was, her attention concentrated on her breathing, on warming up and loosening her muscles, on translating the mental picture she had of each movement of her workout into physical action. It was why she loved the rigor of ballet training so much. There was never any question of one day performing in front of people; she was too old, and had skipped too many years of study and practice, to be able to dance a full program in recital again. But she could compete against herself, always striving to come closer to perfection than she had the day before. Therein lay the incentive, the satisfaction and the drive to persevere.

The "Romance" gave way to the "Rondo: allegro assai." She was pressing upward from demi-plié in fourth to pointe, left arm extended slightly above shoulder height, when Remington said: "Absolutely lovely."

Without missing a beat, she glanced sideways at him. Relaxed, pencil at rest with its point still pressed to the paper, he let his smiling gaze travel over her figure. In it she thought she could see equal parts masculine admiration of her body and artistic appreciation of form and balance. "Could I--?" he asked.

She nodded. Slowly he approached to stand and study the pose. Then he moved behind her to make some adjustments. His hands were warm and caressing in coaxing her left arm into a slightly different curve, in tipping her chin to alter the tilt of her head. She felt his thumb gently trace her cheek before he released her.

Back at his table he tore a fresh sheet from his drawing pad and bent to the task. For some time there was only the lilt of the music and, like a counterpoint, the faint scratch of his pencil. Though her eyes were fixed on a point on the wall opposite her, she could picture him exactly as he was at that moment: right hand moving in broad, sweeping strokes, his eyes moving rapidly from her to the sketch and back, a stray lock of hair falling forward, unnoticed, over his forehead.

His quiet "thank you" was her cue that he was finished; she resumed her exercises. In the beginning, when he'd first asked her to serve as his model, she used to lean over his shoulder for a peek at what he'd done. The results had frankly puzzled her. That collection of angles and planes and curves was supposed to be her? But then he'd related what he aimed to achieve in a preliminary drawing, that it was to establish perspective and spatial relationships, nothing more. "Later, when I've worked out the kinks, it's time to fill in the details that make it a completed portrait," he'd explained.

His completed portraits—what a revelation those were! The first one he showed her had caused her to blush in pleased embarrassment. Somehow through the disposition of lines and shading he conveyed an impression of strength co-existing with delicacy, her body elegant, her face alive with intelligence and humor. The overall effect was a winsome beauty she wasn't certain she actually possessed. "Is this really what I look like?" she'd asked him. "Or is it just the way you see me?"

She was pretty sure that no one had ever asked him that kind of question before. His brow was knit with the struggle of putting a paradox into words. "It's what you look like," he'd replied. "And…it's how I see you."

She had to be content with that. Anyway, judging from his subsequent work, he was telling the truth. Her expression, her stance, her clothing: those he rendered with infinite variety. But the underlying sensibility never changed.

Could it compare with the vision of Anna, as captured by the artist who'd painted her portrait? The one that was supposed to be the opening salvo in the other woman's battle to take Remington back? The one, she was happy to say, that had been stored away at the agency undisturbed since its arrival? She couldn't help wondering.

More: could she hold her own in competition against that patrician beauty and grace, when Remington was exposed to it on a regular basis?

If the emotion that had gone into Remington's execution of those sketches was anything to go by, she was confident that she could.

The rest of the Steeles' early morning schedule rarely meshed, so there wasn't any opportunity to return to the topic occupying both their minds. And Remington was still disinclined towards conversation during the ride to the agency. It wasn't until they were installed in the elevator to the eleventh floor that he said, "Laura, I've been thinking about that plan of yours."

Tread carefully, was the first thought that popped into her head. "Oh?"

"Yes. At second glance it does make sense. It's the quickest way of getting close to Anna, at any rate. And that's the main goal."

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him what had changed his mind; wisely, she refrained. But she couldn't suppress a private inward smile at the evidence of the success of her strategy. "So you'll do it."

"I meant what I said last night. It won't be exactly what you suggested. But, yes, I'll do it. I'll convince her I want to come back. Just as long as we have one thing clear."

"What's that?"

"It'll be on my terms, in my own way."

Asserting his ownership, exactly as she'd expected. Who said men were hard to manage?

At the agency he halted with his hand on the door. "I take it we have a bargain, then?"

She smiled at him demurely. "Of course we do, Mr. Steele," she said. "From here on out, we'll handle it your way."

TO BE CONTINUED


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Too bad, Laura would think later, that both she and Remington had forgotten it was Anna, not they, who was calling the shots.

Anna exerted her power in slow increments. At first she played a waiting game, forcing Remington to come to her. It was he who had to orchestrate their second meeting, asking her down for late-afternoon coffee in the Rexford Palms' upscale bistro. After a carefully calculated three days, he followed up with an invitation to dine at L'Ornate. Laura had suggested it to him a trifle gingerly, trying not to mind that over the past six months it had become one of their special places. "Pierre's reaction would go a long way to putting the seal of legitimacy on whatever strategy you've got going," she'd said. "I'm willing to bet it won't sit too well, your showing up with her instead of me."

Her instinct was on the money. According to Remington, Pierre Fumard played his part to perfection. Anna he'd treated with exquisite, but glacial, courtesy, Remington with thinly veiled disdain. Remington could've sworn the old murderous gleam had resurfaced in the Frenchman's eyes that evening, reminiscent of the spite with which their relationship had begun. Probably the Steeles would have to undertake a fair amount of fence-mending with him once the Anna situation was resolved.

About his own feelings Remington was a lot less forthcoming. Nor would he talk much about the specifics of what passed between him and Anna. "It's counterfeit, Laura, from first to last," was the most she could get out of him. "I said we shouldn't take her for a fool, but I'm certain she considers me one."

His reserve caused Laura a few misgivings. She had to struggle not to view it in the same light as the distance he'd put between them three years ago, not to jump to conclusions, to tamp down her imagination's readiness to fill in the details he wouldn't. And that, in turn, made her angry with herself. Just when she wanted to come across as confident, trusting him implicitly! But as the days wore on, what she read in his behavior went a long way towards keeping the doubts at bay. That he returned home tense and morose from every rendezvous with Anna was undeniable. But no matter how cross he was, he never withheld the affectionate interchanges on which Laura had come to depend, the touches, glances and considerate little gestures. At the office he was as diligent as she'd ever seen him. The same was true of his painting lessons with Gabrieli, which had commenced the first week of January. His desire for her lost none of its intensity; making love with him continued to be just as consuming and fulfilling as always. If he'd set out purposely to reassure her—and she didn't know that he hadn't—he couldn't have done a better job.

No, it was nothing like the last time. Thoughts of Anna weren't eating him alive. His heart still lay with her, Laura, as it had in Monte Carlo in the summer. The strategy she'd finagled him into wasn't backfiring on her, thank God.

And then, on her fifth "date" with him, Anna asserted the whip hand.

"She wants proof," he said, sitting down heavily in the chair in front of his desk. It was well past office hours; he'd just returned to the agency after escorting Anna to her hotel. Laura was behind the desk, finishing off a sheaf of paperwork for the accountant. Rather than go home to an empty house, she'd diverted her restlessness into a useful channel while Remington met Anna for drinks.

Now she pushed the stack aside and leaned towards him, arms crossed on the desk. "Proof? What of?"

"That I've wavered in my commitment to our marriage. That she's displacing you as the proper object of my loyalties."

"She said that?"

"She didn't have to."

He was doing the thing he did frequently in moments of turmoil, tugging at his earlobe. It prompted her to push the chair back from the desk so hard that the casters squeaked in protest. "What you mean is, she's trying to talk you into crossing the line," she said flatly.

"Not yet. I've managed to kick that can some distance down the road. But she does wonder why our...domestic tranquility…has remained unruffled now that she and I are seeing each other."

"How could she know? Don't tell me she's been watching us!"

"I wouldn't put anything past her." His lip curled in something close to a sneer, an expression seldom in his repertoire.

"How did you answer her?"

"My upbringing in the Church won't allow me to break my wedding vows. And I don't want to make any decision I can't take back until I'm sure I can trust her."

"Pretty smooth. Will it be enough to satisfy her?"

He combed his fingers back through his hair—another sign of inner distress. "I don't know."

"Well, you did warn me up front that a campaign of sweet nothings wouldn't be enough to persuade her. Thoughts, Mr. Steele? After all, we're playing it your way."

"For the short term, we drive separately to work. The same if we've errands to do, or clients to see. I'll occupy myself elsewhere in the evenings when Stacie hasn't scheduled a PR event for me. Gabrieli's studio would fit the bill nicely."

"And the long term?"

"In a week or ten days…I'll move to a hotel."

She was convinced her features remained perfectly composed. As far as she could tell, she hadn't moved a single muscle. But she must have been mistaken, or else he wouldn't have said, "Laura, don't look like that."

"Like what, Mr. Steele?" She heard her voice, cool, level, collected.

"Like someone's been pulling the wool over your eyes, and you've just now found him out."

"I guess you'd recognize that look if you saw it, wouldn't you?"

The words had escaped without any sort of premeditation on her part. They seemed to have sprung from a well of buried animosity of which she was previously unaware. She swiveled the chair to the side, but not quickly enough to miss the shadow that pain cast over his face.

He was up and around the desk before she could get to her feet. Grabbing the arms of the chair, he held it still and then knelt in front of it to box her in. Except she knew she could free herself, if she were so inclined. Remington had never exerted—would never exert--the force necessary to pin her in that kind of position. On that she could stake her life.

"Listen to me, listen," he said. "Whatever it is you're suspecting me of, you're wrong. You--"

"What's next? Separate bedrooms until you go away? Wouldn't want her thinking we actually sleep together, would we?"

"That's not even up for discussion."

"Well, hurray for you. For a minute there I thought you were going to say she'd sworn you to an oath of celibacy. Until you're ready to sleep with _her_, that is."

"For God's sake, Laura, would you shut up and listen for a change?" He loosened his hold on the chair and transferred it to her arms, gripping them above each elbow. "From the very start I've lived in the fear she'll take it into her head that you're the obstacle standing in her way. And we both know how she deals with obstacles."

"I can handle her. If I couldn't, you wouldn't be standing here."

"Yes, no doubt that's true, but it doesn't do to underestimate her, eh? You said so yourself. 'Don't forget watching Marleau die'."

"And your point is--?"

"I've got to keep her focus on me, don't you see? If she's following us—or having us followed—she's become considerably more dangerous to you."

The entreaty in his eyes wasn't faked; that much she could recognize. Still she was unable to soften towards him. Why couldn't she? "And not a danger to you anymore, is that what you're trying to imply? Give me a break."

"Of course she is. But I got us into this mess. It's up to me to get us out."

"And you think moving to a hotel will accomplish that."

"It'll draw her attention away from you and our home, at least. And it'll look as if she's begun to achieve her agenda."

She didn't answer. She was thinking how they never really died, the old insecurities about his commitment to her, they only lay quiet in their graves, biding their time until the next summons to rise and haunt her. Would he have chosen her, if Anna hadn't tried to kill him…?

The urgency in his voice stopped her from traveling down that road again. "Laura, you promised you'd play it my way."

Yes, he was the center on which she had to fix her concentration. Her husband Remington: the man who'd followed her home to Los Angeles, though she'd left him precipitously in Menton. Who'd been open about the anguish he suffered when she refused to allow him to protect her from Tony Roselli. Who'd picked her up and carried her out of Castagnoli's stronghold in defiance of a crowd that might've resorted to violence to stop him.

Then and there she laid them down, the aloofness and sarcasm that were functioning as both shield and weapon against him. It was similar to her act of will two years ago, when she shut down the same inner voice and accepted his assurance that he'd intended to tell Anna their relationship had no future.

"All right," she sighed. "What do you need me to do?"

"Bear it in mind that I'm the cad who's betraying you. Treat me accordingly when we're in public, or anywhere prying eyes might see us. And…trust me." He swallowed. The raw pleading in his eyes was stronger than ever. "Can you do that, baby?"

The affectionate diminutive caught her off guard. He didn't employ it except in extreme crises, when she was hurt or sick or in grave danger and thus unlikely to snap his head off over it. With another man she wouldn't have hesitated. But because from his lips it was neither sleazy nor demeaning, but delivered with great tenderness, she let the endearment slide. Secretly she kind of liked it, though she would've died rather than admit it to him.

Over the course of the disagreement she'd held herself unresisting, but unresponsive, under his hands—a conscious choice she'd made. Now, just as decisively, she reached up to touch his cheek. "I can do that," she said.

The Steeles put the new measures into effect the following morning. And right off the bat they proved more painful than Laura had dreamed.

She'd never thought much about it, the inordinate togetherness that characterized their married life. It was only its sudden suspension that brought its extent home to her. That their business partnership was a huge factor went without saying; it made sense to caucus on cases while en route to the office, to visit prospects and clients together, to spend their lunch hours brainstorming or comparing notes when it was feasible. But it wasn't the only reason. She genuinely enjoyed Remington's company—thrived on it--had done for years. Their personalities, though so different, meshed seamlessly. The friendship that undergirded their love was true and deep.

Was it too much? She never would've said so before. Often she would've confessed she couldn't get enough of him. Now it was impossible to fool herself into believing that the comparative deprivation didn't hurt. There was a gaping hole in the pattern of her days where Remington should've been. And their time behind closed doors in the office and in bed at night didn't go far enough to fill it.

At least Anna was appeased for the time being, or so Remington believed. Whether or not she actually had them under continued surveillance they were never able to confirm. It meant that they could only in the most private of moments drop their hostile attitudes towards each other. Good thing they'd clued Mildred in on the secret, or they would've had her wringing her hands and weeping in despair over the collapse of their relationship.

In the meantime, the day they were dreading, the one when he was to check into the hotel, continued its relentless advance.

Finally it arrived. To give them an uninterrupted weekend before their separation, he'd planned his departure for a Tuesday morning. Over Saturday and Sunday both tried hard to carry on normally, refraining from talking much about what loomed ahead. After all, what was there left to say? They would do what needed to be done, the sooner the better and as quickly as possible, to evict Anna from their lives.

That determined avoidance was the reason Laura never guessed he had a plan afoot for a special farewell. Coming home alone to an empty kitchen and a darkened first floor on Monday evening gave her no inkling of it, either. The Auburn in the garage was a token of his presence, the light spilling over the banister from the second floor the key to his whereabouts: that was all. He was packing, she thought, or maybe working on a drawing, and planning to pick up takeout in an hour or two. Okay; she could develop a craving for chicken-chipotle fajitas within that time frame. "Remington?" she called.

"In the bedroom."

The first thing she said upon crossing the threshold and discovering what awaited her was, "I take it we're not having carryout for dinner tonight."

"Nothing gets by you, Mrs. Steele," he smiled.

She advanced a step or two. He'd rearranged the furniture nearest the fireplace so it was out of the way and lit the gas log—an amenity of which they seldom took advantage. Over the floor he'd spread a double cashmere throw. A picnic supper was arranged along one edge, finger food, crab puffs and cold chicken, bread and cheese, grapes and strawberries, as well as a couple of containers of chocolate mousse. The green-glass neck of a champagne bottle was visible above the edge of the ice bucket.

And propped on his side next to it with his head leaning on his hand was her husband, clad in his blue silk robe. With nothing on underneath it.

In the firelight she looked him over appreciatively. He returned the scrutiny with a lifted eyebrow, a faint smile on his lips. He resembled nothing so much as a beautiful big cat, she thought, a leopard or a cougar, all long, lean muscles, lazy and graceful but with latent power lurking below the surface. She almost expected to hear him purr.

Her voice pitched to just above a whisper, she said, "How's your appetite, Mr. Steele? What are you hungry for?" Supper or me, in other words.

"Ah, no." Taking her meaning at once, he shook his head. "That's for you to decide. Tonight is in your hands."

She smiled at him. "In that case, don't go anywhere. And--" this over her shoulder as she entered the bathroom "—don't move."

It didn't take long to peel out of her suit, blouse and hose. Her lingerie she left on; she knew the ways he liked to play, and wouldn't have dreamed of robbing him of the pleasure of removing it. A little discreet grooming, a dab of perfume on her wrists and behind her ears, and she was sauntering barefoot out to join him.

With glowing eyes he watched her approach. On the throw she sank to her knees parallel to him and slipped her hand beneath the robe, trailing a slow path down his chest and stomach. The cat analogy was more apt than ever in the warmth of his skin, the silkiness of his hair, and the way his body rippled under her fingertips. "Ready to put yourself in my hands?" she breathed.

He let slip a tantalizing grin. "I'm all yours. And, Laura--"

"Hm?"

"There's no other place I'd rather be."

She answered his grin with one of her own. Then, pressing forward with her hands on his shoulders, she bore him to the floor. His breath came out in a faint chuff as she stretched out full length on top of him.

True to his word, he followed the pace she set, from her first delicate, nibbling kisses at his earlobe and jaw line to her open mouth settling full on his. Not until she sat up to untie his sash and spread his robe open did he slip her camisole over head and push her panties off. His hands grasped her hips to hold her astride him as she covered his body with hers; they reached up to cup and fondle her breasts as they rocked together. And when she collapsed bonelessly on him in the aftermath, he crushed her to his chest, face against her hair, and gave a long moaning sigh that told her all she needed to know about the joy she'd given him.

The look in his eyes a few minutes later said the same thing. He'd turned and eased her over onto her side so that they were lying face to face. "Me lovely love," he whispered.

She took his face between her hands and lightly kissed his lips. "Just a little something to remember me by," she whispered in return.

Still later, after their bodies had cooled and their heads had cleared, she mused aloud, "It's weird, you know that? You'd expect that after six months, the romance would be dying down. Or take a lot more effort to stir up. But if anything we're going stronger than ever."

They'd capped their most recent round of love-making by inventing amusing uses for champagne, strawberries and her serving of chocolate mousse. Now she was sitting tailor-fashion on the floor beside him, feeding him occasional bites as she finished his share of the mousse. Lying prone on the cashmere throw, head pillowed on his rolled-up robe, he looked as relaxed and smug as he probably felt. "Are you hinting that we've become old married people?" he asked. "And should constrain ourselves to an appropriately sedate sex life?"

"No, but I _am_ wondering why it isn't old hat for us. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work? Gradually losing the magic?" She pondered the question again for a beat or two. "Unless it's because we went at it the wrong way around in the first place."

"Laura, I don't claim to be an expert in biology, but I can assure you, we're going about it the way nature intended."

"Not that. The whole relationship. Marriage before sex."

"Perhaps. Though it's occurred to me the opposite is true." He watched her dip the spoon into the container and beckoned her forward. "Come here." With a skillful application of lips and tongue he shared the taste of mousse with her. "Chocolate kiss," he added, releasing her.

"Mm, clever. What do you mean, the opposite is true?"

"Merely that what we have together is proof we did it the right way round."

It was an interesting theory, especially coming from him. It wasn't always this easy to get him to engage in an analytical conversation about their relationship, either. She regarded him with her head on one side. "Explain that to me."

She'd paused with a spoonful of mousse in mid-air; nudging her, he circled her wrist with his fingers and guided her hand to his mouth. Then he settled back to think. "You know I'm no prude. And despite circumstantial evidence to the contrary, neither are you."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"Waiting wasn't my first choice. Nor would I recommend it as a rule. But it's possibly the best thing that could've happened to us."

Another surprise. "Funny how you never mentioned it the first four years we were together."

"Ah, but you see, I didn't know it then. Experience—that's how I've learned." The teasing sparkle faded from his expression; it was with a gentle seriousness that he gazed at her. "Is it a black mark against my character to admit this? No doubt. But if I'd made love to you before I knew you—before I loved you…I might not have stayed. And I'd have missed…this." His gesture was expansive, taking in the entire room. "All I never knew I wanted, until you'd given it to me. And been infinitely poorer for it."

It was probably the longest and most eloquent speech he'd ever made on the subject of how much marriage had changed him for the better. Remember this, she thought, next time he pulls one of his evasions. To him she said: "You know what, Mr. Steele? Sometimes you think some very lovely thoughts." And after a mouthful of mousse she bent to bestow another chocolate kiss on him.

At length, the picnic supper demolished, the champagne drunk and their stamina exhausted, the Steeles took themselves off to bed. Thoughts of tomorrow night without him—and how many nights after that?—kept fighting to intrude on Laura's peace. Resolutely she tuned them out. Tomorrow would be time enough to face unpleasant reality. Tonight she wanted to savor the unsullied enjoyment of sleeping in Remington's arms.

As it happened she was disappointed, not because she couldn't shut her mind off, but because he couldn't shut off his. At some point in the early morning hours, she turned over in her slumber to an empty space beside her. It was so unexpected as to startle her awake.

Though the flame was lower than earlier, the gas log was alight again. And he'd returned the armchair to its customary spot beside the hearth and was sitting in it.

She sat up, too. "Remington?"

It seemed a long time went by before he replied. "Hm?"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

She'd almost made up her mind to slide back down between the sheets when he spoke again. "Come here."

He sounded subdued, almost somber. As soon as he'd gathered her onto his lap and she could see his face more clearly, she knew she had it right. Her cheeky, laughing lover had disappeared; in his place was the man of melancholy, brooding eyes fixed on the fire, a bleak set to his mouth.

In six months she'd gained a lot of experience—and a little expertise—with this sort of mood. "Can you tell me?" she said softly.

A contradiction: he shook his head, but then replied, "It's this whole damned hotel business. My fault, since I'm the one who proposed it. But I hadn't any idea how hard it would be. Pretending I prefer her to you? And can't wait to get away from you? When what I want most on earth is to have you in my arms?"

"If it's any consolation, it's no easier for me."

"No?"

"It's awfully difficult, acting like I hate my husband. Especially after what you did for me in Pramagiorre. But I'll do it if that's what it takes to protect you from her."

"Misery loves company, eh?"

"Just know you're not the only one who hates it."

"I do know."

He let silence fall and went back to staring at the fire. To give him space to think, she undid the buttons of his pajama jacket, not with any intention of arousing him, but for the mutual comfort of skin-to-skin contact as she nestled against him. They were an odd habit of his, pajamas, one she used to think before Ireland was an affectation, something he'd copied from one of his heroes of the big screen, Gable, maybe, or Cary Grant or Spencer Tracy. Surely he only donned them when sharing a bedroom with someone else, opting for old sweatpants and a t-shirt in private, as Wilson had done. But no; he really wore them every night. There were moments, lots of them, when that layer of clothing between her and Remington was sexy as hell. Other times it operated almost as a barrier to intimacy.

Well, she'd taken it out of the way tonight. She could rest her cheek on his bare torso, and breathe in the scent of him, and hope she was doing him some good.

It did, at least, encourage him to talk again. "I don't think," he said, "I've been as scared in my entire life as the moment I looked in your bedroom window at Castagnoli's, and saw you lying there, in pain. Or when I realized they'd poisoned you…or when you collapsed on the stairs. I swore myself a promise then, Laura."

"What was that?"

"That I wouldn't let you out of my sight again. Not when there was imminent danger, I wouldn't. But here we are again, only a month since I might've lost you. And it's my own doing."

"But it's not like it was in Italy. We'll see each other every day. And you'll have Anna occupied, right? Isn't that the idea?"

He shrugged.

"And there's a whole other angle we haven't explored," she went on. "We can have some fun with it, you know. Plan clandestine assignations. Sneak off for nooners. Think of the challenge to your creativity, Mr. Steele."

He met her eyes. As he did, some of the light came back into his; his lips curved into a smile. "Why, Mrs. Steele. There's something downright lascivious in your tone."

"You know what they say about the taste of forbidden fruit."

"Hm?"

"How sweet it is."

"Mm." It was half noncommittal grunt, half a wordless acknowledgement of interesting possibilities. It was also a signal that she'd achieved her goal of dispelling some of the darkness that had descended on him. Unnoticed by him, she exhaled a quiet sigh of relief.

Conversation continued in fits and starts after that, and she didn't realize it was lulling her to sleep until a little movement from him roused her. Blinking, yawning, she began to disentangle herself from his lap.

His arms tightened around her. "Where are you going?"

"Back to bed. Are you coming?"

"I'd only toss and turn. Aren't you comfortable here?"

"Just sleepy."

"Then sleep here for a while. Could you? I'll put you to bed."

A puzzling request; she wasn't sure what to make of it. Then he said slowly, with the sadness audible once again: "I'm not ready to let you go."

Her heart gave a queer twist at the sound. "I don't want you to let me go."

"Then...stay."

She did.

And found the same word hovering at the tip of her tongue the next morning as she watched him pack.

He wasn't taking much, clothing enough for a week, his oil crayons, sketchbook and some of his unfinished projects. Spotting a couple drawings of herself, she objected, "Kind of dangerous, don't you think?" Before he could stop her she'd plucked them out of the pile and set them aside. ""Wouldn't want to give her the wrong idea."

Frowning, he snatched them back. "Laura. It's perfectly safe. She's not setting one foot in my room. Ever. What makes you think she would?"

What she'd taken for irritation was much stronger: he was offended. "Sorry," was all she could say.

He made a dramatic show of backing the Auburn into the drive and then stalking out to pack it with his garmet bag, valise and portfolio amid much yanking open and slamming shut of the trunk and passenger door. That their street seemed empty, with no strange cars about, was beside the point. Anna had the resources to hire the best, undetectable surveillance available, barring Remington Steele Investigations. Any unseen eyes would be impressed and report to her accordingly.

Finally they were in each other's arms. The embrace was a long one, and so was the kiss, one in which he tipped her face up and held it as if it were a cup to be drunk from. "All right?" he murmured. "Okay?"

"Okay."

With both hands he smoothed her hair back and looked down into her eyes. "I'll see you at the office. And I'll call you tonight. The same as we did when you were in Italy, eh?"

"Okay," she said again. For a few more seconds she held him fiercely, then inhaled a deep breath and loosened her arms. "Be careful," she said, for lack of anything better.

His footsteps lagged perceptibly en route to the door. But he went through it in a rush, and was gone.

She was never a woman who cried easily, preferring under all but exceptional circumstances to channel pain into more productive avenues. Even now, she resisted the emotional outlet. But she did lean back against the door with her arms crossed and squeeze her eyes shut.

It wasn't permanent, she told herself. Of course it wasn't. It only seemed like it because she wasn't accustomed to his absence yet. As soon as he'd played Anna with his inimitable style and flair, and the incriminating papers were safely in their hands, they would resume their lives as the inseparable Steeles. He'd promised. And she trusted him.

So why did it feel as if he were never coming back?

TO BE CONTINUED


	9. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

"I think it's time I paid Clayton Endicott a visit," Laura said to Remington.

It was his third night at the hotel he'd chosen, the Plaza Century City within walking distance of the agency; they were in the middle of their by-now routine bedtime phone call. It was almost the only contact they'd had with each other the entire day. Of course, since the conversation wasn't over yet, Laura couldn't be sure they were really at the halfway point. But judging from the time they'd invested on the preceding nights—two hours on Monday, almost two and a half on Tuesday—they seemed to be on target.

By unspoken agreement the tone of the previous calls had been determinedly light-hearted, if not exactly cheerful. But to the conclusion of yesterday's Remington had added some extra spice. Using his storytelling gift to maximum effect, he'd beguiled her by imagining aloud what they would be doing if they were together, how and where he would've touched her, and did it with such skill that she was left breathless and tingling in their bed. "That's…quite a vivid picture you've drawn, Mr. Steele," she'd said when she could trust herself to speak.

"Isn't it?" In his voice she could hear overtones of the wicked grin he was undoubtedly wearing. "Until tomorrow night, my love. Sweet dreams."

So far this eveing they'd been centered strictly on business. "Why Endicott?" asked Remington.

"It's been puzzling me, why a litigator with a top-notch reputation would do such a sudden U-turn into a completely different branch of law," she replied. "So I did a little background check on him while you were out hobnobbing with the country club set. Criminal law was Endicott's career track from the minute he hit Columbia University. Internships in the prosecutor's office, a clerkship, even a stint with the New York district attorney before he went into private practice. But three years ago he's hired to defend Anna, fails to win an acquittal, and presto! Inside four months later he's a partner in the corporate firm Walter Patton's had on retainer for decades. A little strange, wouldn't you say?"

"Perhaps Patton simply liked his work and grew to trust him. Certainly there must've been compensations that made the move attractive."

"Maybe. Or maybe there was another inducement altogether."

"Anna."

"They were much more than chummy the day we staked out the Rexford Palms. And closeness like that is the work of more than the few weeks since Patton died. Oh, and by the way? Endicott arrived in California with a wife and two children."

"Whom he's shed since then?"

"More like his wife got rid of him. Divorce awarded 1986, uncontested."

He digested it for several seconds. "All that's very well, Laura, but if there's a connection here to our…problem…with Anna, I have to confess I don't see it."

"There isn't one, at least not yet. But he may have the answers to a few questions."

"Such as?"

"When the doctor handed down Patton's cancer diagnosis, for one thing. Mildred's still having no luck with breaking through the patient confidentiality safeguards, and I'm beginning to think she never will. I might surprise it out of Endicott. And get him to tell me who secured Anna's parole and how."

"Matching wits with a former high-powered litigator? You'll have your work cut out for you."

"If I weren't a high-powered investigator, I would," she said breezily. "We'll see who's left standing after tomorrow at three o'clock."

"Ah." There was a distinct interval of disapproving silence on the other end of the line. Or so it seemed to her. His tone sounded suspiciously bland as he drawled, "Made the appointment already, have we?"

Just like that, resentment was roiling in her. "What I if I have?"

"Nothing, but I thought we had an agreement to make this sort of decision together."

"I would've consulted with you, only you were too busy after your meeting. Treating your lady friend for a late lunch at Musso's, as I recall. Hope she enjoyed the 'old Hollywood' ambience."

"What's that got to do with-?"

"-If you can't be around when I need you, you'll have to learn to live with me making decisions without you. It i_s_ still my agency—at least it was last time I checked."

What had made her say that? The agency-ownership trump card was one she hadn't played in ages. Then she knew. Like the night he'd broken the news that he was moving to a hotel, she was going out of her way to hurt him, partly hoping she'd done so, partly appalled at herself for giving in to the impulse in the first place.

"Laura. You're putting words in my mouth. I was only going to ask-"

"—What? Might as well put it all out there, as long as you're in the mood to criticize." There was no doubt about it now; every one of her muscles was tensed to go on offense. She was literally spoiling for a fight.

"—I was only going to ask," he repeated, overriding her and enunciating each syllable with precision, "if you've considered Anna's reaction to your looking more closely into her affairs-"

"Of course I have. What do you take me for-?"

"—because I'm interested to know your line of reasoning," he finished.

Instead of answering, she pressed her free hand to her brow. Suddenly she was sick of it, all of it: the playacting, the walking on eggshells in public and private, the chaotic muddle of her emotions, the unpredictability of her moods, their marriage turned topsy-turvy at Anna's whim. With a deep, unalloyed longing she wanted their life back as it had been until New Year's Eve. Would things between them ever be normal again—or what passed for normal with them?

Her failure to speak must've disconcerted him, because his voice became very gentle. Either that or the asperity she thought she'd heard was never really there to begin with. "Laura?"

"What?"

"I wasn't second-guessing you. But you have to admit you're flying in the face of what I'm trying to accomplish by staying here. I thought we agreed the object was to tread carefully where she's concerned, lest we incur her anger."

"It was," she said, not quite able to suppress the weariness. "But in a perverse way this charade we're playing has given me an opening we didn't have before."

"I'm not sure what you're getting at."

"The put-upon wife. It makes perfect sense I'd try to get revenge on her somehow. What better way than poking around where I have no business, trying to expose the skeletons in her closet?"

There was a brief silence while he mulled it over. Then he said, "Now I understand. That's all right, then."

It was obvious from that point that he'd set himself to smooth over the unpleasantness, eventually provoking reluctant laughter from her in the way only he could do. Once complete, if hard-won, harmony was restored between them, he revealed a surprise at which he'd hinted at the beginning of the call. "I've hit on a way to smuggle you in here with no one the wiser."

"Do tell, Mr. Steele."

She listened in growing amazement as he laid it out for her. As much careful forethought and attention to detail had gone into it as if he were pulling off a major heist. Tomorrow evening at seven o'clock she was to show up at Godfrey's on Olympic and head straight for the end of the bar. There she was to search for a man drinking a Hendrick's Spring Tao, recognizable by its rhubarb-stick garnish, and greet him by the name "Packy". Packy would escort her to Godfrey's private, locked back room, secure it, and then usher her out the rear of the building to meet Fred with the agency limo. At the Plaza's service entrance she'd find Remington awaiting her; Packy would spirit the Rabbit away to a safe hiding place and convey it to the hotel in the morning.

"Bring your overnight bag with you to the office in the morning, and I'll take it along when I leave for the day," were her husband's final instructions. "And wear your jumpsuit, eh? Your cover will be you're out on stakeout, if there's a tail on you."

Talk about mood swings! Not twenty minutes earlier she'd been ready to lash out at him. Now his thoughtfulness was bringing her perilously close to the edge of tears. She couldn't help but be touched by the evidence of how much he wanted to be with her, and the elaborate measures he'd taken to make it happen. It almost ranked up there with the time he'd faked a case in order to get her alone in San Francisco.

To conceal the weakness, she said briskly, "What kind of name is 'Packy', anyway? And do we know him well enough to trust him with my car?"

"He's a good sort, Packy is. Not above a rousing bender now and again, but that's a personal failing I can live with in this situation. Besides, I've remunerated him nicely. You'll be safe with him, Laura. As for the name-" she could picture the twinkle dancing in his eyes "—you'll have to take that up with the man himself."

"You've…really covered all the bases, haven't you? Packy, Godfrey's, Fred, the Plaza night manager."

"You know me, my love. No palm ungreased, no bread unbuttered, no stone unturned...no depths I won't sink to for the right woman."

"Or heights you won't scale?" she suggested.

"Only since I've married you."

He ended the call at the three-hour mark with a promise to arrive at the agency early so he could rehearse her through the questions she wanted to ask Endicott. His very last words were: "Laura…I'll be counting the minutes until tomorrow night.

"Me, too, Mr. Steele. Sleep well."

And she _was_ counting the minutes, she thought, as she turned off the light and settled down under the covers. There was no doubt in her mind it would be the highlight of her day, if not the whole week.

But first she had to tackle Clayton Endicott.

* * *

Laura's conference with Walter Patton's attorney provoked more questions than it answered.

Setting out for the Santa Monica office of Case, Caldwell, Endicott and Cheney the following afternoon, she actually felt her spirits begin to lift. It was easy to put her finger on the reason why. For too long she'd been hamstrung, professionally speaking, by the threat of harm to Remington if she started probing as deeply as she itched to do into the improbable circumstances that had led to Anna's freedom and marriage. Now the strictures had eased a little. Maybe she would crack the mystery wide open today; maybe she'd only gain confirmation of a few facts. Yes, she hated like hell to have postponed the start of the investigation so long. But right now it hardly made a difference. Progress, activity, those were the important considerations. And they were an antidote to the creeping loss of control she was experiencing over her relationship with Remington.

Was Clayton Endicott the loose thread that might begin to unravel the tangle? Hard to be sure. The glimpse she'd had of him and Anna two weeks ago seemed to indicate it. Were they lovers? Partners in crime? Both? How had Anna inveigled him into her web? And what incentive was she providing to keep him there?

Within five seconds of taking Endicott's measure, Laura realized how difficult a task she'd set herself, if her purpose was to obtain straight answers from him.

What took place between them was the conversational equivalent of either a fencing match or a tennis game, or maybe a little of both. Call it what she liked-parry and thrust, serve and volley-the results were the same. He deflected every question she asked with the smoothness of a champion evader. No trick she attempted could dent his polished, impenetrable surface.

Her opening gambit was indirect, exploring the discrepancy in the timing between Patton's death and the retrieval of Anna's portrait from the County Museum. Hitting a brick wall with that avenue, she turned to the issue of the sender. There for the first time she thought she caught a slight shift in Endicott's demeanor that told her he was hearing something new. It suggested that he'd had no idea to that point that the portrait had ever been sent to Remington. And he was as displeased by the implications as Laura had been.

But the glimpse was just that: a glimpse. It didn't lead to any sort of chink in his armor. She was no closer to her objective than she was when she'd sat down.

In increasing frustration with her lack of success, she decided to test how far she could push him. "Doesn't it strike you as odd?" she asked. "That Mr. Patton would've sent a portrait of his wife to another man?"

"It hadn't occurred to me, no."

"Well, it has to me. After all, my husband and Mrs. Patton were once…associates. Seven years ago on the Riviera."

Endicott didn't reply.

"More than associates. In fact, they were personally involved. You already know that, of course. I assume she told you all the facts when you were preparing her defense for her murder trial. I also assume Mr. Patton was aware of them."

Still no reaction. It was time to drop it, the bombshell she'd held in reserve just in case he proved as intractable as he in fact was.

"And now my husband's left me for her," she said.

Yes: that was the ticket. She watched coolly as he jumped to his feet and thrust his face towards her, palms flat on the surface of his desk. "Mrs. Steele, why are you here?

"I told you. Hoping to get answers to some nagging questions that have cropped up since we learned Mrs. Patton was released from jail."

"No, you're not. You're on a fishing expedition of some kind. But your bait is stale. I could smell it from a mile away."

"Trying to protect my husband," she countered. "Don't forget, we were both there when she killed Raymond Marleau in cold blood. It's always puzzled us that you never called on us to tell you our side of the story. Why was that, Mr. Endicott?"

Instead of answering, he turned furiously away. Holding his door open, he said, "You can leave now."

So much for the big questions on her list, the hushed-up wedding, the parole that could only have been arranged through a corruption of the justice system. It was hard, leaving before she'd had the chance to pose them. But maybe she'd learned more this afternoon than she could properly evaluate at first glance. It would be interesting to hear what Remington had to say.

She didn't have to write it off as a total loss, after all.

That was why she nodded thoughtfully and got up. "Yes, I think I probably can. Thank you for your time."

* * *

Contrary to her mental image of him, Packy turned out to be a tall, distinguished old gentleman with a tonsure of snow white hair and an elegantly cut suit. The only sign Laura could spot of his alcohol problem was the broken veins in his nose and the pouches beneath his eyes. The Spring Tao in front of him on Godfrey's on Olympic's bar was virtually untouched.

As soon as she discreetly breathed his name, he vacated the bar stool and with the suggestion of a courtly bow took her elbow. "Delighted to make your acquaintance," he said. "Mick's description of you didn't do you justice, glowing as it was. But don't tell him I said so."

Somehow, though he maintained an unhurried pace, their progress through Godfrey's various rooms was speedy. Sotto voce he said, "Mustn't dawdle, my dear. Fellow in a dark mac came in just a few seconds after you did. I'm quite convinced he's the tail Mick spoke of."

At a door in the very back of the restaurant, he produced a key from a vest pocket and ushered her into an intimate little supper room, dark and unoccupied. A second key opened a door that led outside. Parked a few feet away, the limo was idling, its headlights dimmed, Fred a vague outline in the driver's seat.

Packy silently scanned the perimeter of Godfrey's parking lot. "The coast is clear, my dear," he said at length. "Quick and careful, now. Fare thee well."

"Keys to my car?" Laura was opening her purse.

He patted his vest pocket with a smile. "Already supplied. Mick's very thorough, as you well know. I intend to lead a certain lowlife a very merry chase tonight, indeed."

Despite his uneven, discolored teeth, his smile was so infectious, she couldn't help returning it. On impulse she rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "Thanks, Packy."

Fred performed his duties of opening the passenger door and handing her into the back seat with his usual invincible correctness. "I hear Mr. Steele's promised you a tangible reward in your paycheck," she remarked as he pulled onto Olympic. "But I want to tell you personally how much I appreciate this."

His impassivity didn't crack for a second. "Transportation to conjugal visits is included in the service, Mrs. Steele."

It was clear from the intricate series of feints, detours and double-backs Fred made to the hotel that Remington had coached him to take evasive action on the road. Finally he turned onto a side street just past Avenue of the Stars. A few seconds more, and they were pulling up to the rear of the Plaza.

Remington must've been watching for them, for there he was, opening her door and reaching for her hand. He leaned down to the driver's window to exchange a few words with Fred. Then with his customary knock on its roof he dismissed the limo and led her swiftly into the depths of the hotel.

"Everything go as planned?" he asked in an undertone as they strode hand-in-hand along a stark, deserted hallway.

"Fine. Packy spotted the tail, though."

"Did he? Damn. A man?"

"That's what Packy said. I never saw the guy. Whoever Anna's hired, they're awfully good." In mock dismay she smacked her forehead. "That's what I forgot! I didn't ask Packy about his name."

"Not to worry. You'll have other occasions, provided this works well for us tonight."

Riding up in the service elevator, they took advantage of the chance to relax their vigilance for a few minutes. He slipped a hand under her hair to knead the base of her neck; she inclined to him with her arm around his waist. The first sight of him in jeans and a cashmere crewneck had sent a shock of sensual pleasure along her nerve endings, and the scent of his cologne was compounding the heady feeling. She exhaled a contented sigh.

He smiled down at her. "Is this what you imagined when you suggested we plan a secret assignation?"

"Mm-hm. A little intrigue, a dash of risk, and a whole night together at the end. What more can I ask?"

The elevator doors slid open, an indication that they'd arrived at his floor. She braced the doors apart while he advanced a few steps outside and stood in a watching, listening posture. Apparently satisfied, he mouthed, "Go on", and motioned her to change places with him, tucking his key card into her hand as she passed him.

Though substantially more luxurious than the service corridor, this one was just as empty; her sprint to his room was unimpeded. Once inside she had a handful of seconds to register the turned-down bed, low lights and the classic jazz he loved spilling softly from the radio. Then he was edging through the door, they were in each other's arms at last, and her mind and senses were too full of him to absorb anything else.

It was strange: they'd seen or spoken to one another every day since he'd moved here, but it was this moment alone that felt like a homecoming to her. From the way he stroked her face and hair as he kissed her, and groaned, "Oh, my God," it was safe to suppose he felt the same. That was why, when he picked her up so that their faces were on a level, she laughed aloud in the sheer delight of being close to him. With her arms and legs wrapped around him, clinging with all her might, she kissed her laughing lover, and tumbled in a happy tangle with him to the mattress.

She was in the mood to be more thoroughly kissed—after all, no man on the planet was better at it than he—and as soon as they'd achieved their desired stage of undress, he smilingly indulged her. She had no conception of how long they'd been at it when the phone rang, its peal discordant in this warm little world where there was just the two of them.

In response, she hugged him more tightly. "Don't answer it," she whispered against his lips.

"It might be Packy." Kissing the tip of her nose, he admonished, "Don't go anywhere."

His greeting was an immediate clue to the caller's identity. "Hello, darling," was what he said into the phone.

Darling. In other words, Anna.

The light and warmth emptied from the room as if whisked away by an invisible hand. Suddenly Laura was so cold that she sat up, grabbed for the sheet and pulled it up to her armpits.

The same invisible hand seemed to have grasped her heart and lungs, squeezing, squeezing. What other explanation could there be for the rapid pounding of her pulse, and the difficulty she was having in drawing a deep breath? The worst of it was her ability to think. It wasn't functioning at all. How could she take control of this humiliating scene if reason failed her?

She watched him completely turn his back on her, propped on an elbow, the other shoulder, his left, curled defensively inward. His voice was low and guarded. Shielding her, Laura, from overhearing something that could be painful to her, no matter that she was aware it was a sham?

Or shutting her out while he talked to the woman he really loved?

Still she couldn't summon the will to get up and walk away. What was possessing her to stay? She couldn't understand it. Where a few moments before she'd been freezing, now she was burning hot, listening to him speak with the woman he'd claimed filled him with revulsion. And doing it with what sounded a lot like genuine affection.

Well, that shouldn't come as a surprise. Once a conman, always a conman.

Mercifully, he cut the call short. "You know how much I detest long talks over the phone," Laura heard him say. "Far better to tell you in person." Silence, and then: "Splendid. All right, darling. Good night."

The sight of him rolling over and sitting up, ready to gather her to him as if everything was perfectly all right, freed her from her odd paralysis, spurred her to throw back the sheet and spring out of bed.

It was what she intended, at least. She was thwarted by Remington's grip on her arm. "Laura, don't," he said. "Please."

He wasn't using a lot of force, but it was never smart to underestimate his strength; he had her, and he wasn't letting go, she could bank on it. It went without saying that she could've extricated herself if she wanted to badly enough. The problem was she didn't want to. She was no less angry, no less conflicted, but her arm relaxed regardless. And that, in some respects, was the biggest humiliation of all.

It also seemed to be the signal he was waiting for to rise to his knees and enfold her from behind. He held her with infinite care, as if she was fragile, or he was afraid she would bolt if he made a sudden move. His hand slowly brushed her hair back and away from her right shoulder and smoothed it to the left. Then he bent to kiss the neck he'd exposed, starting from just under her ear and downward, lingering for long moments at her nape and in the soft hollow where the neck and shoulder join.

Normally she would've dissolved blissfully into the spell of his hands and mouth on her. But in this abnormal situation she held herself apart, emotionally if not physically, head bowed, fists in her lap, torn in two. Half of her still raged to wrench away from him, leap to her feet and sweep out the door on a wave of scorn and recrimination. The other half was damned if she'd give Anna the satisfaction. He was hers, this man, no one else's. She wasn't surrendering him to the blonde usurper that easily.

There was no possibility he could miss how stiff she was in his embrace. His lips arrested in their descent; he rested his chin on her shoulder, just breathing quietly with her. The minutes slipped by.

Then he said: "Laura, I love you."

That settled the question. Her fists loosened, and gradually she softened her body against him. Finally she tilted her head so their eyes could meet. In hers was a challenge.

"Show me," she replied.

It wasn't his fault, she reflected later, cradling him while he slept. He'd tried. Ardent, attentive and tender, he'd tried hard to recapture the spontaneous fun of the moments immediately following their arrival. There he'd failed. The mood was irretrievably spoilt. For the first time since her release from prison, Anna had come between them in the bedroom.

Miserably she acknowledged it to herself. If it was romantic warfare Anna was waging on Remington, then she, Laura, had taken the hit in the current battle. The only bright spot was that Anna would never know it.

Yet the final thought that ushered Laura into slumber was a vaguely comforting one. It was she who was with her husband in his bed; that was the pleasurable weight of his leg thrown across hers, his arm draped around her waist. Anna, by contrast, was sleeping alone at the Rexford Palms.

Which of them was really the loser, after all?

Before the following morning was half over, she would find out.

It started abruptly, the same way she woke up. The light penetrating the chink in the drapes wasn't the rose-pink of dawn, but the pale lemon of sunrise. Aghast, she pulled out of Remington's arms and grabbed him by the shoulder. "Mr. Steele!" she hissed. "Get up!"

It took the usual combination of shaking him and repeating his name to wake him. Tousled hair hanging over his forehead, eyes unfocused, he needed a few additional minutes to comprehend what she was saying. "Half-past seven?" he gasped at last. "Oh,my God…!"

Chaos engulfed the room. It was the two of them dodging around one another to seek mislaid articles of clothing; she plugging in the in-room Mr. Coffee for a hasty cup; Remington's frantic call to Packy to bring the Rabbit over; her fruitless struggle to tame her mussed hair. And, weaving throughout like an edgy theme, their wrangling over whose fault it was.

"It's your room, Mr. Steele. It was up to you to set the alarm clock."

"Ah, but you're the one who insisted on rousing us at the ungodly hour of five a.m. Why didn't you remind me?"

"What am I, your mother? You're a big boy. I shouldn't have to police your every move."

"_Police_ me? What an interesting choice of words. Instructive, too. So you secretly think I need a guardian to maintain me on the right path as it were, do you?"

And on and on. By the time they were ready to leave, however, they'd managed to quell their mutual irritation enough to focus on security. It was a good thing, because in traveling back over last night's route, they found it a lot more crowded. By dint of keeping their heads down and avoiding eye contact with the members of hotel staff they encountered, they made it unhindered to the service exit.

Through the door he'd cracked open, Remington monitored the parking lot. "If only we knew what this tail of Anna's looks like," he fumed. "Or who she's set him to watch today, you or me. Here's Packy, Laura."

Just before she would've passed him on her way out, he looped an arm around her waist and turned her to him. There was anxiety in the blue eyes searching her brown ones. "Is it all right now? Eh?" he asked. His voice was soft and tentative.

She understood immediately that he was referring to the previous night. Somehow the ordinariness of their most recent spat had rendered the episode with Anna less distressing in retrospect. "All right."

"I swear I'd no idea she was going to call here, Laura."

"We'll talk about it later." She raised her face so they could exchange a casual kiss. "See you at the agency."

Heading eastward on Wilshire towards home, she tried to assess the damage her delayed departure might have caused. Packy had assured them that he'd given Anna's detective the slip last night, and hadn't picked him up since. Still, Laura should've been up and out of the hotel well before daybreak. She could only keep her fingers crossed that no one had noticed her with Remington, let alone remembered it.

She'd made the left off Wilshire and was halfway up their street before she spotted a low-slung silver sports car she didn't recognize parked in their drive.

As for the blonde emerging from the driver's seat? Her Laura did recognize.

Pure fury descended. The blonde thought she could get away with threatening Remington—dogging every mood they made—using emotional blackmail to wear away his resolve? And now she was invading their home, the one Laura and Remington had built so painstakingly together? Not while Laura still had breath in her body.

The Rabbit raced to close the remaining distance to the house, breaking the speed limit by twenty-five miles, and peeled to a stop at the foot of the drive. Then Laura was out the door and striding around the hood, eyes fixed implacably on her enemy.

Time for round two.

TO BE CONTINUED


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Was this the way Remington felt that night not long ago when the two of them had set out for Pico Union in search of Tony Roselli? Laura asked herself. The night when, if not for the last-minute intervention of the LAPD, he would've shot Roselli in a trash-strewn alley out of revenge for what Roselli had done to her?

She thought it probably was. And for the first time she appreciated what it must've been like to be in his shoes. For she would've gladly used any means available to wipe the maddening, supercilious smile off Anna Patton's face.

But the confrontation with Roselli had also taught her and Remington a lesson, one she couldn't forget, like it or not. Surrendering to the impulse towards violence had provided Remington with momentary satisfaction, but it had backfired on them in the end. Roselli had slipped through their fingers. He was out there somewhere, they were sure of it, biding his time, waiting to spring his next trap as soon as they least expected it.

She couldn't make the same mistake with Anna.

So she took a deep, steadying breath and felt her head clear. It didn't banish the anger altogether, but that wasn't a bad thing; she was the betrayed wife, and she'd play the role to the hilt. Just as long as drama was balanced by enough caution so she didn't reveal any damaging information, and enough logic to figure out what Anna was thinking and what she was after.

Within a foot of the Anna's car, Laura halted, barring the path to the front door. "What do you want?" Excellent, as Remington would say: though anger simmered in her voice, it was also even and controlled.

Anna appeared equally self-possessed. She ought to have been. Dressed in gray linen trousers and a white silk shirt, she was exquisitely groomed, her beauty burnished to a high gloss. She smelled of some expensive, faintly bitter perfume. Laura couldn't help but contrast the state of her own hair, pulled severely back into a ponytail to tame its unruliness, her lack of makeup—she hadn't even had time to shower!—and admit how far short she fell of Anna's standard.

But whose body had kindled Remington to fever pitch and beyond last night? Through whose hair had he run his hands, murmuring how lovely it was? In whose arms had he slept, sated, fulfilled, secure in the knowledge he was loved, even when circumstances between them were less than ideal?

Not Anna's.

"--To see you, of course," Anna was saying.

"Next time try my office."

"I need to speak to you in private, and this seemed to be the obvious choice," Anna replied. Her amused stare raked Laura up and down. "I must admit, I'm not sure whether to bid you good night or good morning. Whatever would Remington Steele say if he could see his wife creeping home at this hour? When the cat's away, and so forth?"

Ignoring the nasty implications of Anna's remark, Laura inwardly blessed the foresight that had guided Remington to suggest she wear her jumpsuit to and from the Plaza. "I was out doing my job. Honest work. You should try it sometime."

"No, thank you. I prefer to maintain the lifestyle to which I'm accustomed the old-fashioned way: marrying into it."

"A unique way of describing it. Not very flattering to your late husband, though. You still haven't told me why you're here."

"I think it's time you and I had a few things clear, don't you?"

"By all means, let's clear things up," said Laura. "I'll start. Get your claws out of my husband. Now."

"How very direct you are."

"I'm a firm believer in getting straight to the point."

"Then you won't mind me following your example. I have no intention of giving him up. What are you going to do about it?"

"SimpIe. I'll make you wish you had."

Anna raised delicately mocking brows. "And how do you propose to do that?"

"By exposing whatever dirty tricks got you out of prison. And whoever pulled them for you…Walter Patton…or Clayton Endicott."

"I assume that's what led you to pay that extremely ill-advised visit to my solicitor yesterday."

"Word gets around."

The condescending smile had returned, flickering at the corners of Anna's perfect lips. "It's no use, you know. Paint me in the most odious colors you like, make me the villainess, but you won't get him back. He's through being your Remington Steele."

While she was speaking, she'd moved a step closer to Laura, and now she lowered her voice as if to share a confidence. "He's tried, but he simply can't stand your narrow, provincial life. It runs counter to everything he is. He feels trapped, tied down. And really, how on earth did you imagine you'd satisfy him with—this?" She gestured dismissively towards the house. "After the places he's been and the adventures he's had?"

As a verbal lunge for the jugular, it was skillfully calculated. And it shook Laura in spite of herself. Yes, it was one of the unexpressed, free-floating fears she was still dealing with, that as soon as the novelty of marriage and stability wore off, the possibility of greater excitement would prove an irresistible lure, and Remington Steele would move on. How had Anna known?

Of course, Laura thought with a mental snap of the fingers. It was the line he was using to gain Anna's trust. It had to be.

Unless he was telling Anna the truth.

But: 'What we have together is the stuff of real life, Laura'. They were Remington's words; she recalled them from the day they'd decided to accept the house from Patsy Vance's estate, and again from New Year's Eve. 'I don't want to live any other way'.

The memories enabled her to return Anna's stare without the slightest sign of agitation. "For someone's who's dissatisfied, he sure has stuck around a long time. He could've left whenever he wanted. No one held a gun to his head."

"Oh, but you did. Marriage or…nothing. Isn't that the way it worked between the two of you? Dreary little prude that you are?"

This time Laura couldn't stop herself from flinching. Objectively she knew that Remington had never confessed anything of the kind, that Anna had hazarded a guess and drawn her own conclusions, but to hear their relationship described in those terms by her adversary--reduced to a vulgar allusion—herself accused of the oldest feminine trick in the book—gave Laura pause. Could he possibly have dropped a hint to Anna--?

Though it was hard to continue standing her ground, she managed it.

But Anna wasn't finished. "He couldn't resist the challenge of storming your citadel, I suppose. That's the kind of man he is. But now that he's married you, do have what it takes to keep him…interested…for more than a few months?" Again the insolent gray eyes surveyed Laura from head to toe. "He must be absolutely out of his mind with boredom. He wouldn't have come to me otherwise."

"Don't flatter yourself," Laura said sharply. Circumspection be damned: the reckless mood was driving her now, just as it had in Endicott's office the previous day, and with a soaring sense of liberation she gave it the upper hand. "We both know you had to blackmail him into that first meeting. And he wouldn't have left me if you hadn't forced him into it somehow." Skating a little close to the truth, she knew, but she retained enough command of herself not to press the point too far. "But I'll make you a promise. I'll find out how you did it, and get him out from under whatever it is. And when I do, you're history. Guaranteed. Do we understand each other?"

"I think we do." Anna was still smiling, but now it was as if at a joke Laura couldn't see.

The enigmatic Mona Lisa act had worn out its welcome, in Laura's opinion. "Good," she said, making a half-turn towards the Rabbit. "I'll be back in two hours. I trust you'll be gone when I get here. Don't plan on coming back."

She would've stalked off, but Anna's hand snaked out to catch her wrist. Her slender fingers were cool, her grip startlingly strong. "I must insist you stay away from my solicitor in future," Anna said.

"Or what?"

"Perhaps you'll discover actions have consequences…Mrs. Steele."

"Threats, Mrs. Patton? The judge who handed down the commutation of your sentence would be very interested to hear them." Without waiting for an answer, Laura withdrew.

Speeding back to Century City, she wasn't aware of much except the acute sensation of Anna's poison starting to work—and her own disturbing inability to throw off its effects. Anna's barbs had been too damned accurate to be entirely random. Laura's mind kept circling back to the only credible explanation. Remington must have handed Anna the ammunition somehow, maybe inadvertently…maybe on purpose.

Laura didn't want to think it; it just happened.

It wasn't long before she was bursting through the agency's main doors and addressing Mildred without any sort of preamble. "Drop whatever you're doing and get me a work-up of Anna Patton's finances right away. Cash accounts, real estate, stocks, anything you can get your hands on. If she so much as buys a stick of gum, I want to know about it."

"You got it. Anything special I should be looking for?'

"I'll know it when I see it. Thanks, Mildred. When Mr. Steele gets here, tell him I need to see him right away."

"Why not tell me yourself?" Remington said from behind her.

She turned. If his office door was open when she arrived, she hadn't noticed, but now he was leaning against its jamb, arms folded. There was no telling how much he'd overheard. One thing she was sure of, however: he looked as tense as she felt. Mildred, whose antenna was always sensitive to undercurrents between them, glanced from him to Laura with wide eyes but refrained from speaking.

So did they. Even when Laura turned again, this time towards her office, Remington followed her in silence. It was only when he'd shut them both in that he demanded: "What is it?"

It was washing over her again, the fury, the knowledge that Anna had won another round, that despite her best efforts Anna had gotten under her skin. Leaning back in her chair, she closed her eyes and fought to contain the emotional backlash so it didn't spill over onto him.

"Laura--"

"Anna was waiting for me when I got home."

"She _what_--? The bloody hell--!"

From the sound of things, his outrage was spontaneous and genuine. Opening her eyes confirmed the impression. He looked as if he would've strangled his old lover without a single regret if only she were within reach. At his obvious animosity, some of her own—the share she'd half-unconsciously apportioned to him—ebbed a little.

His next words helped, too. "Are you all right?"

"Fine."

"Did she say what she wanted?"

"I guess she didn't like me questioning her lawyer. Boyfriend. Whatever Endicott is."

"And?"

How to frame the rest of it for him? Here in this safe, intimate space, with him lingering diffidently nearby, concern for her evident in his very posture, it was hard to believe he'd exposed her and the inner dynamics of their marriage to Anna's scorn.

And yet…how could Anna have known?

Remington was watching her carefully. "Laura?"

"To inform me I'll be waiting a long time if I'm a big enough idiot to believe you're coming back to me."

"But that's not all. Is it?"

It really was frightening, how well he knew her. Even if he hadn't, it was impossible to hide from the blue eyes that never strayed from her face. She felt the telltale scarlet rising in a hot tide to her hairline, and bit her lip.

"Tell me," he said gently.

"That you're better off with her, because I've tied you down to a life you can't fit into and never wanted in the first place."

Nodding, he blew out a long breath. "I thought as much. What else?"

This part was harder; she had to shift her glance away from him in order to vocalize it. "How impossible it would be for a dreary prude like me to hold your interest for more than a few months. How bored you are already. Sexually speaking."

There was a pause. When he spoke—he was the one to break the silence—his voice was charged with such vehemence, her gaze flew straight to his face. "Laura, I never said that."

"Relax. I didn't think you did," she replied. And wondered if he realized she was lying.

Most likely the answer was yes, but Remington refrained from calling her on it. Instead he crossed the few feet that divided them, grasped her hands and pulled her from the chair into his arms. He handled her in much the same fashion as he had last night, a little tentative, not as confident of her welcome as he usually was. He wasn't entirely unjustified; residual bitterness made her hesitate to rise at first. But then she relented and settled into his embrace.

And once again, under the influence of his physical proximity, the stirrings of distrust subsided. The power of Anna's venom began to abate. The resurrected fears crept into their graves. She could discuss the episode rationally.

He said: "She had another motive in showing up, I suspect. Checking on your whereabouts, seeing as you dropped off her detective's radar last night."

"The thought did occur. And that she called you for the same reason."

"It had to be. It's the first time she's done anything like that. I was as surprised by it as you were."

"I know. And I know you were only playing along. It just…got to me for a minute." She smiled ruefully. "But I'm over it."

"Are you?" The worried frown still creased his brow.

"We've got too much riding on this masquerade for me to blow up over something you can't control."

"On to the next line of attack, then? Her finances?"

"I warned her I was going to find a way to get you out from under her thumb. I meant it. With you working your angle at the same time, we'll resolve this nightmare that much sooner."

"What about Endicott? You haven't said much about him."

"Not much to tell. You were right; I couldn't anything out of him. But he had an interesting reaction when I implied there was something between you and Anna. Looked a hell of a lot like jealousy to me."

"An excellent two days' work, Mrs. Steele." By now he was leaning against the window sill, holding her within the circle of his arms. "You never got a chance to shower, did you? I'll wager you didn't have breakfast, either."

"I didn't want to set foot in the house while she was there."

"How about this? I'll run down to the coffee bar and pick something up. Yogurt? Some fruit? Eh?"

She gazed at him in bemusement. "Mr. Steele, you're scaring me."

"Perfectly harmless suggestion. Nothing to be alarmed about."

"I mean you. You don't have to try so hard. You really don't. I'll grab something later. I need to go home and change, anyway."

They went their separate ways then: she to her desk, he towards his office, where he would phone Anna and set about soothing any suspicions that might have erupted since their previous conversation. But on the threshold he wavered. "Laura…about tonight."

"What about it?"

"Will you come to the hotel if I can manage it?

Laura's heart leapt—and immediately sank. Of course she wanted to be with him more than anything; the prospect of a solitary night at Windsor Square, relieved only by his phone call, was a dismal one. But could she afford the risk? Her defenses were wearing thin. She wasn't certain they would bear up under another emotional onslaught. If Anna encroached for the third time in twenty-four hours…

"Do you really think that's wise?" she asked.

"Why not? I'll have all my calls routed to the answering service. We won't be interrupted."

'This time'. He'd left it unspoken. The phrase hung in the air between them nevertheless.

On the one hand, she couldn't bring herself to refuse him; on the other, in light of what had transpired that morning, she was leery of saying yes. So she fell back on the coward's' resort, and hedged. "Let's wait and see what develops. Ask me again later, huh?"

A discernible change always came over Remington's features when someone hurt him, a bleakness that blotted out his usual deviltry and merriment. It was painful, watching that look shut down, knowing she was the one who'd caused it.

"Laura," he said, and cleared his throat. "It's what's getting me through this, the hours we spend together. Do you understand? I can't do without you. Keep that in mind while you think it over."

He went out. As soon as the door had closed behind him, she raised both hands and buried her face in them.

She did understand. She felt the same way about him. What she didn't know was how much longer their bond could withstand the escalating pressures on it.

TO BE CONTINUED


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Then, just like that, the pressures lightened a bit.

It happened within a matter of hours. Remington returned from lunch with Anna with the news that she planned to spend the weekend cruising from San Diego to Malibu aboard _The English Rose_. In terms of his sham courtship, he was off the hook for the next two-and-a-half days.

The Steeles reacted like a couple of school kids let loose for an unexpected holiday, slightly giddy with the sudden freedom. The only fly in the ointment was Anna's detective and the necessity of evading him if they wanted unfettered time together. But Remington circumvented it brilliantly by putting together a spur-of-the-moment, Friday-night flight from LA to the Lake Malibu cabins managed by an old client and friend, Billie Young.

Content to follow his lead, Laura left the execution of his elaborate escape plan, which involved Bumpers, Mildred and two vehicle switches, up to Remington. Not long after five o'clock, the Rabbit was headed towards Tijuana as a decoy with Bumpers in the driver's seat and Mildred riding shotgun. Meanwhile, Bumpers' Cutlass transported Remington and Laura north to Twin Pines, where happy memories of the weekend of their wedding awaited them.

Twin Pines was peaceful and rustic as always, Billie an undemanding hostess who instinctively divined her guests' need for privacy and respected it. Ordinarily Laura would've deplored the lack of distraction. If past history was any indication, so would Remington. But just now solitude was the perfect medium for resuming the rhythm of their married life. It was the little things that worked the magic, falling asleep and waking up next to each other, sharing living quarters once again, the easy banter and sparring, and the companionable silences that fall now and then between two people who know each other very well. They gave her back all of Remington, friend and partner, lover and husband: hers. As for him, he wore the air of a man who'd laid down a heavy burden he'd been bearing far too long. Relief, she thought it was, and thankfulness for the respite. She hadn't noticed before how fine-drawn with fatigue he'd grown over the past few weeks.

The observation sparked a pang of guilt. She was his wife; she was supposed to notice those things. Why hadn't she?

They didn't do much besides hang around the cabin, making love frequently and insatiably, or scour the small towns nearby for decent burger and rib joints when they got hungry. But it was probably the most potent restorative they could've asked. By dawn on Monday morning, starting back to Los Angeles, they'd recovered some of their pre-Anna solidity.

At the office they found Mildred ready with the report of Anna's financial dealings. It was a long one in which numbers eloquently told the story. Laura absorbed the computer printout and passed it to Remington. "It looks to me like she's in the process of liquidating her assets."

Mildred nodded. "Everything she can get her hands on, and some things she can't. Not for lack of trying. But Patton's other heirs are standing their ground. More power to 'em, if you ask me."

"Ah, Mildred. Where would we be without you and your pithy commentary, eh?" Remington put in with an approving grin.

"But she's had access to some hefty cash balances since Patton died, hasn't she? Money she could get at fairly easily?" asked Laura.

"I'll say. Six figures' worth in money market funds and CD's."

"So why the sudden need for loads of ready cash? Theories, Mr. Steele?"

"To pay off a blackmailer," said Remington without glancing up. "First thing that popped into my head," he added.

"Well within the realm of possibility," Laura agreed. "If it wasn't for the personal relationship, Endicott would be a prime candidate."

"Or whoever in high government circles is responsible for turning her loose among an unsuspecting populace," he replied.

"Could be gambling debts," offered Mildred.

"A big purchase, like a house? Her lease at the Rexford Palms is up on the thirty-first. That's next week. Has she said anything about where she plans to go?" Laura was addressing Remington again.

"Not a word."

"She's selling houses, not buying them," objected Mildred. "All except the place in Malibu. Maybe she's planning to leave the country."

It was by far the most plausible explanation. Laura gazed across at Remington. "Could that be it?"

"Possibly. If she feels she's accomplished whatever purpose she set out to achieve."

"She has Patton's fortune, or most of it…she has Endicott…she thinks she has you. What more could she be after?"

"An excellent question, Mrs. Steele, one I believe is up to me to explore in greater depth. No time like the present." And he headed off to his office, where, Laura knew, the charm offensive was about to begin afresh. She sighed a little wistfully. Their idyllic weekend—and the short hiatus from Anna—were officially over.

In between paying cases, she spent the bulk of the next two days sifting through the data Mildred had accumulated. The more thorough review confirmed her first impressions but left her puzzled. Anna was definitely dismantling and selling off her deceased husband's empire, piece by piece. But what was she doing with the money? Her day-to-day expenditures remained constant, with no inexplicable, upward spikes; she hadn't made any new investments. She wasn't banking it. A second search for offshore accounts in her other names, Marleau and Simpson, turned up nothing. Was she amassing ready cash preparatory to departing Los Angeles, perhaps the country, as Remington had suggested?

Or could she be planning to share the fortune with someone in her life, as she'd as good as hinted to Remington at that fateful first meeting? With Clayton Endicott? Remington himself?

What better incentive to dangle in front of a would-be lover who was exhibiting reluctance to take the ultimate plunge with her?

The scenario was ugly and sordid, Laura had to admit. But it wasn't far-fetched. Anna's mind worked precisely along those lines. She was perfectly capable of offering herself and the money as a package deal without a trace of shame. And frankly, how many men would be able to resist?

Thank God Remington was impervious these days to that kind of temptation. And for the weekend just past, which had done so much to shore up Laura's beleaguered faith in him.

It was why she was able to accept it philosophically when he felt he had to devote Tuesday evening to wining and dining Anna again. There was no question of Laura stealing into his hotel room afterwards, but she did wait up for his promised phone call. Only it came much later than she'd anticipated, and he was apparently in no laughing mood as he opened the conversation. "Can you meet me at the agency?" was all he said.

His tone was brusque. "What's the matter?" she asked.

"I've something to tell you, but not over the phone. Can you?"

"Give me twenty minutes."

"I'll be waiting."

He was. From the darkened reception area he led her into his office, shut the door and flicked on the overheads. She didn't waste time asking if the extra precautions, lights off, closed doors, were warranted; the look in his eyes said he wasn't playing around. "What's the matter?" she asked again.

"Were you followed?"

She told him about the late-model Toyota that had stuck with her for the entire trip across Wilshire, but had shot off into the night once she'd veered into the parking lot. Then she posed the question for the third time. "What is it?"

"I've done it at last, I think."

"What?"

"Earned Anna's trust. She's asked me to cruise from Malibu to San Diego with her this weekend."

Laura's response was sharp-voiced and immediate. "Out of the question."

"Why not?"

"Two words. Club 10."

"How did I know you were going to say that?"

"Well, what did you expect?" She left her seat beside him on the sofa and moved behind the chair that stood at right angles to it, holding hard-knuckled to its back. "For me to cheer you on? Applaud while you run your neck willingly into the noose? Sorry, but I'm not ready to bury you just yet.

"Nor am I ready to leave you a widow. But Laura, she'd hardly go to the trouble and expense of putting out to sea merely for an opportunity to murder me."

"You must be joking. It's the ideal set-up for her. The two of you, out in the middle of nowhere, with no witnesses? She tosses you overboard along with your effects, clears up the mess, and that's the end of Remington Steele."

"Except for one thing. You don't run a yacht that size without a crew, and she has one. Captain, co-pilot and-Steward? Stewardess? I'm not quite sure what to call her. The woman who does the cooking and washing up, at any rate."

"Her employees! You think they're going to keep you safe?"

"They're not employees, they're private contractors. They've no loyalty to her apart from collecting their payment at the end of the voyage. I seriously doubt she'd try anything with them on board, even if I wasn't ready for her. Which I am."

She was silent for a moment, not because she agreed with him, but because it was time to address the elephant in the room, and she wanted to choose her words with care. "You know what she'll be expecting from you," she said slowly. "How do you plan to avoid it?"

He didn't pretend for a second that he didn't understand what she was talking about. "We won't be sleeping on board. She's booked adjoining rooms at a hotel near the marina."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?"

"I don't know. I hope it will. Because either way…I'm going with her."

Despite his increasing impatience with her opposition, he hadn't lost his temper, and he'd spoken calmly enough. But there was no mistaking the steel that lay underneath. It meant that he'd made his decision; barring a catastrophe, there was no unmaking it. And that scared her more than any explosion from him could ever have done.

"You can't," she said. It was nearly a whisper, lacking the force of her first, more emphatic, veto.

"I have to. It's the best chance we have for recovering the evidence."

"She's going to hand it over to you?"

"I wouldn't consider going otherwise. Perhaps it's a ploy, but if it is, the joke's on her. I mean to retrieve it no matter what, with your help."

That should've been intriguing. Instead, Laura's sense of foreboding intensified. "I don't like it. It smells like a set-up."

"No more than I liked it when you deliberately put yourself in harm's way in Liguria. But you didn't let that stop you."

"Oh, now I get it. That's what this is. Payback."

"No, it's me doing what has to be done, the same way you did. It's time—past time, Laura-" he raised his voice as she turned away from him "-to put an end to her blackmail, before she can hurt us more than she already has." Jumping to his feet, he intercepted her in the center of the room and with his hands on her shoulders made her face him. "She's done far too much damage as it is. You think I don't recognize it, that look in your eyes? It's the one that greeted me every day for four years, give or take. Not quite certain of me…never entirely trusting me. She's brought it back, hasn't she? Just when I thought I'd proven myself for good."

So he'd guessed how deep her doubts about him had gone. She gazed at him, afraid that if she tried to speak, she would become completely undone.

"It was that moment on the stairs at Castagnoli's," he went on. "Remember? You couldn't go any farther, and I said leave it to me, I'll get you out. And you trusted me to do it. I saw it in the way you looked at me. You believed I'd come through for you. I did, didn't I?"

"You did." Sure enough, her voice betrayed her, shaking just as she'd suspected it would.

"Then believe in me now," he said. "I'll finish it this weekend, once and for all. You'll see."

He was quietly but fiercely resolute. What could she say to counter him? Nothing, and she knew it. Really she'd lost the argument weeks ago, when he'd sued for the right to confront Anna that first time, and she'd conceded it to him.

Her mouth tightened in a grimace, her eyes squeezing shut to hold back tears. To hide it from him she put her arms around him and buried her face in his sweater. "I hate this," she said.

"I know you do. So do I." He circled her waist with one arm while the other hand held her head against his heart—a wonderfully protective gesture she couldn't remember him ever making before. "But by this time Saturday night, it'll be over. Meanwhile we've plenty of time to work out a plan. Silent, swift and devastating. That'll be you and me, eh? Turning the tables on her at last."

Remington was right about one thing: they did have plenty of time. The plan was simple and easy to coordinate. He thought Saturday morning would offer the best chance for searching the yacht for the papers and photos; he could steal out of the hotel early, before anyone was about, and slip over to the marina. Anna's hotel room would be the next target if he failed to come up with anything. Either way, as soon as the evidence was in his possession, he would disappear into the city before Anna could miss it. Laura's job would be to wait for his phone call and then come and pick him up.

To tell the truth, she wasn't crazy about the logistics. In her opinion it would've made more sense for her to be in position in San Diego in case he needed her, instead of tied to the phone in LA. But he categorically nixed the idea. "Not as long as you're being watched, you can't," he said. "If her man gets wind of what's afoot, we're done for. Might as well save ourselves the trouble and throw ourselves on the LAPD's mercy right now. I won't mind occupying myself for a few hours until you arrive. In fact, it'll be therapeutic, gloating over our new-found freedom with her just a few miles away."

It wasn't a decision designed to promote peace of mind. To ease her misgivings, Laura concentrated on background checks for the three crew members—a job that ordinarily would've fallen to Mildred, but one she felt compelled to handle personally. It was worth it to discover for herself that none of the crew was on Anna's payroll, just as Remington had said. The captain's profile was especially reassuring. Mike Watts was well-respected in mariners' circles and in high demand as a pilot. His charter business was booming; there were no outstanding debts or property liens in his record. It all lessened the likelihood that he would've bowed to any financial pressure Anna might have sought to exert on him.

At the same time Laura mulled over and over the facts they'd uncovered so far. If she could only break the case wide open before Friday! Remington would never have to set foot aboard _The English Rose_ at all. But the disparate threads refused to resolve themselves into coherence. Patton's illness; the relinquishment of power of attorney; the timing of the Pattons' marriage and her parole; the portrait's arrival at the agency; Anna's overtures to Remington; the sell-off of Patton's assets. There was a pattern, Laura was convinced. By this point in a normal case, she would've detected its outlines, if not its entire shape. This one continued to elude her, though, hovering at the fringes of her comprehension, out of reach.

With the possible end of Anna's power over them within their grasp, the Steeles had agreed it was in their best interests to forego another romantic rendezvous at the Plaza. Maintaining the illusion of distance and hostility between them was too critical to risk it for the sake of a few hours of pleasure, no matter how much they missed each other. But when Remington came into Laura's office to kiss her goodbye at the close of business on Thursday, he said: "Leave the French doors unlocked tonight, will you? And don't arm the alarm when you go to bed."

Cocking her head, she assessed the twinkle in the beloved blue eyes. "Mr. Steele, are you suggesting I leave myself open to an intruder?"

"I suppose it does lend a whole new meaning to the term 'unforced entry', as your old friend Butch Bemis would've put it," he agreed.

"For a man of limited vocabulary, he was amazingly descriptive. And unwittingly perceptive." Arms around his neck, she maneuvered him into a longer, deeper kiss. Then she went on, "You know, it's pretty romantic, you sneaking home under cover of darkness so we can be together."

"Not to mention the added fillip of lurking danger, the ever-present possibility of discovery, our unquenchable determination not to be kept apart, despite the odds against us…"

"Enough!" she laughed. "You've already sold me. What time can I expect to be…intruded upon?"

"I'll be there as near on ten as I can make it."

Actually, he was better than his word. It was at a little past quarter of ten that she heard the soft _snick_ of the French doors opening from the patio, audible in the silent house, even from their bedroom. There was the sound of his footfalls and the creak of floorboards as he checked the other windows and doors on the first floor. And then, finally, the stairs protesting under his weight as he bounded up them two at a time.

It took all the self-discipline she possessed to lay motionless, allowing the anticipation to build. Her whole body was tingling with it, her breasts, her warm, wet center. And at the sight of him striding to the bed, already peeling off his turtleneck, his bare chest and shoulders and arms emerging in the moonlight, her heart began to drum in an instinctive welcome. Oh, yes, he was gorgeous—and, oh, how she wanted him…

The mattress dipped as, dispensing for once with pajamas, he settled on its edge and pulled back the sheet. Then he began to laugh. For, prompted by an impulse to hasten the first moment of skin-to-skin contact—or maybe guided by the strength of their connection to read his mind before he knew it himself—she hadn't worn a nightgown to bed.

He seemed to think it was the latter. "Ah, Laura," he teased. "If ever there was proof that we were meant for each other, this is it. Two minds with a single thought between them, two souls, tuned to the same wavelength-"

The only cure for his soliloquizing was to cut him off before it soared into full flight. "Remington?"

"Yes?"

"Shut up and come over here."

He was more than happy to oblige. Once; twice; again and yet again, until she forgot to keep track, and it didn't make any difference, anyway. But she wasn't too overwhelmed to note something different about his lovemaking, an extra dimension of warmth and richness she couldn't quite put her finger on. The enforced separation, or the uncertainty tomorrow would bring, or a need to demonstrate his devotion to her all over again: which was the cause? Whatever it was, it blew her away. She'd never been one to wax poetic over good sex; Remington could usually be counted on for enough effusiveness to cover both of them. But tonight, entwined with him in the afterglow, exhausted and languorous and enraptured, she could almost have poured out every single metaphor she'd ever heard-and meant them.

By the time she woke the next morning, it was after six. Even as she registered the empty space where he should've been, Remington was rounding the foot of the bed. Fully dressed in jeans and a shirt, he crouched on the floor beside her. That position brought his face just about level with hers. "Hi," he whispered, drawing the greeting out so that it sounded like a caress.

For a moment memories of last night, warm and vivid, wrapped around them like a cocoon shutting out the rest of the world. Then it came flooding back, the reason he was here in the first place. "Out and about early, huh?" she replied.

"She wants to start off at first light. We'll make San Diego early this evening if we do."

"Nice to know it's the last order she'll be able to give you."

"It will be if I have anything to say about it."

His hand was sliding beneath her hair; his face was next to hers on the pillow. She opened her mouth to him, her lips clinging to his, prolonging the kiss, trying to infuse it with the pent-up emotion that she, for all her pride in her forthrightness, was never quite able to express to him. It was a good thing, because the first words that occurred to her when they parted were completely inane. "You taste like peppermint."

He smiled. "As well I might." Under the sheet his hand was traveling lower, stroking her shoulder, one finger tracing a line between and around her breasts, his palm coming to rest lightly on her stomach. "Ah, me darlin'," he said softly. The smile was in his brogue, too. "For sure you're the loveliest woman I've ever laid eyes on. You take me breath away, so you do."

Usually he reserved endearments like that for foreplay. Laura blinked at him in perplexity. "Are you feeling all right?"

"Never better, thanks to you. Think of it, my love! Today's the beginning of the end of Anna's nasty scheme. And the only woman I'll be wooing thereafter is my beautiful wife."

His upbeat mood bore both of them up through their final good-bye. But as soon as he'd disappeared by the route he'd arrived, merging into the shadow-filled backyard, the full weight of apprehension fell on Laura's shoulders. And it resisted every effort to dislodge it. There was something about Anna and this whole misbegotten adventure, to borrow one of Remington's phrases, something Laura still couldn't grasp. What was she missing? What had she overlooked?

With customary foresight she'd amassed a pile of routine work in hopes that it would keep her focused, occupied, for eight hours or more. Before the morning was half over, she realized she'd already lost the battle. When she wasn't glancing obsessively at the clock, aggravated at the slowness with which the minutes were wearing away, she was staring at the wall or out the window, lost in speculation over what was happening on _The English Rose_. Visions of Remington and Anna frolicking together in the hotter-than-average weather unfolded in stunning clarity and detail. The two of them lying on the aft-deck, or whatever it was called, sunning themselves. Anna reaching for a bottle of tanning oil, passing it to him; he accepting it with a lazy, suggestive smile. His hands, long-fingered, sensuous, graceful, smoothing it over the other woman's back, her slender arms and legs, wandering little by little to the edge of her bikini top, outlining a slow trail along her skin to the tie that fastened the top around her neck…

It wasn't until her imagination had trespassed into explicit territory that Laura would come back to herself, her stomach in knots, as shaken and sick as if she'd been physically present, a voyeur spying on her philandering husband and his lover. She could bend back to her task in forced concentration all she wanted; she could try to summon up recollections of last night as a shield. Nothing seemed to help. She needed Remington.

But he was miles away…perhaps already caught in a snare into which he'd walked with eyes wide open.

She spent an unquiet night, alternately consumed by anxiety and tormented by jealousy. Seven a.m. or thereabouts: that was the time Remington had estimated he might first be ready to call her. It seemed to approach on leaden feet. But at last it was six o'clock—twenty-four hours since she'd had her husband in her arms. Gratefully she left the bed in which she hadn't slept a wink to revive herself with a very long, very hot, shower.

Seven o'clock arrived. Departed. No phone call.

Downstairs she prowled restlessly between the kitchen and the den, cup of coffee in her hand. For company she'd turned on the television in the one, the radio in the other. She was listening to neither. Any minute, she was thinking. Any minute now.

She wondered if he'd ridden the same emotional roller coaster the day she failed to call him from Pramagiorre.

Eight o'clock. When was the last time she'd confronted a situation like this, Remington incommunicado, circumstances conspiring to make it impossible for her to track him down? The Joan Gray case, almost a year ago. Two creeps, steroid-abusing athletes, had beaten him up in a parking lot at Union Station—played Red Rover with him, as he facetiously explained later—and dumped him there unconscious. They'd roughed him up pretty good; it had taken him four hours to wake up. She was tasting it again, the frustration, the impotence, hamstrung by lack of information when she knew—_knew_—she could've used her skills to rush to his rescue.

I'll bet you thought I'd run off with another woman, was the first thing he said when he'd finally got a hold of her. The irony wasn't wasted on her now.

At nine a.m., phone in hand, she was staging a heated debate with herself. To call his hotel room, or not; which was the safest? Which would increase chance that Anna would penetrate the masquerade and react accordingly? Which would provide him with an escape if he was in trouble?

"—Clayton Endicott," interrupted an electronic voice. "…murdered."

For a second or two she couldn't pinpoint the source. Then she knew it was the television. But her hesitation, brief though it was, had cost her. In the time it took her to drop the phone and run into the den, the news anchor had progressed to reporting on a robbery in Los Feliz.

Desperately she dove for the remote and flicked through the channels. Her persistence was rewarded the third time she landed on Spotlight News. Over videotape of attendants wheeling a covered gurney towards an ambulance parked in front of a sprawling house, the anchorman was intoning, "…body of prominent attorney Clayton Endicott, discovered last night by a neighbor in the garage of his Westwood home. According to police, Endicott may have been gunned down more than twenty-four hours before his body was found. Spotlight News reporter Sharon Sebastian has learned that Endicott's co-workers weren't suspicious of his absence from work on Friday because he'd excused himself for a weekend cruise to San Diego." The camera switched to a two-shot of anchorman and reporter, both wearing the professionally furrowed brows that were intended to emphasize the story's tragic nature. "Sharon?"

The reporter seamlessly picked up her cue, but Laura never heard her. The plan, she thought wildly. Anna's plan. Flawless in its execution. Deadly in its symmetry.

Two men enticed to Club 10 three years ago. One man shot to death, the other escaping with his life by the narrowest of margins.

Two men enticed on a weekend cruise. One man shot to death.

The other?

Shock had rooted her to the spot at first. It was a temporary aberration. Pumped with adrenalin, she sprang into action. Swift and devastating, wasn't that what Remington had said? Problem identified, an objective to be met: now she was at her best. The waiting game, by contrast, had never been one of her strong suits.

Purse, car keys, phone number to the San Diego hotel. She'd call his room from the road. There was one stop to make, the agency; fortunately it was directly on her route. Even if it wasn't, she couldn't head south without her gun.

It was her turn to save the life of her love.

TO BE CONTINUED


	12. Chapter 11

**Author's note: To everyone who's continued reading, thanks for your patience with the lag time between the last post and this. Sometimes professional commitments drain the Muse so much, there's nothing left for writing for fun.**

**MG**

Chapter 11

Three hours later, she was standing in the parking lot of Summergold Marina in San Diego, tasting to its dregs the bitterness of having been a dupe. A chump. A fool.

She had to hand it to them. They'd played her like the mark she was, her so-called husband and his lover. That it had taken them three years to do it was, she supposed, a tribute to her innate caution and clear-sightedness. But they'd succeeded in the end.

In her right fist was Remington's wedding ring; her left was clenched around Remington's letter. She'd squeezed it convulsively into a ball so as not to look at it again. Not quickly enough, though. Its contents were permanently burnt on her very retinas.

_Darling,_ he'd written. _Not long ago you gave my ring back to me. Now it's my turn to return the favor. As they say in the vernacular: you know what to do with it and everything it means. _

It was signed only, _Steele._

That was it. No apologies, no regrets, no explanation. She would've had to be an even bigger idiot than she already was to expect them. He hadn't bothered when he left her in May of 1985. Why should this time be any different?

Seething with hurt and rage, she stood by the Rabbit, letting the full import sink in.

She never saw it coming. Oh, she'd had her suspicions, persistent ones, that his struggle against his attraction to Anna was deeper and more difficult than he would admit. She'd even suspected he'd surrender to the pressure and sleep with Anna. But not this. Not the perfect double con: pretending to his wife that he was being coerced into romancing his old lover, when all along the woman he was pretending to romance was his wife.

But that wasn't like him, objected a voice. She recognized it, the determined, perpetually loyal little advocate for Steele that dwelt in her head. Or maybe it was her heart. Ruthlessly she quenched it.

When had they cooked up the scheme, Steele and Anna? At their first meeting? When he'd left Windsor Square? The night he'd summoned Laura to the office to break the news of the cruise? What had he hoped to accomplish with his month-long masquerade as anguished husband?

Most likely she would never know. And what difference did it make in the end? To her everlasting shame, she'd proven herself what she'd always been when it came to Remington Steele: the biggest sucker on earth for his act.

His passionate appeals for Laura to believe in him. Were they an act? demanded the advocate, refusing to be quenched. His misery at the evidence her faith was slipping. His unyielding resolve to put an end to the blackmail at the peril of his own life. Were those acts, too?

Hours and hours spent dallying with Anna. Moving out of the house to affirm his loyalty to her. Joining her on the cruise in the face of Laura's protests.

Remington making love to her, Laura--last night, all through the weekend at Billie's, the night before he'd departed for the hotel--not with his sex alone, but with his eyes and hands and fingertips, his voice and his lips.

Remington beguiling the other woman over the phone, the same way he'd done with Laura, in a tone so affectionate and intimate he'd even had her fooled.

By now she was shaking. She wanted to shriek with fury; weep until grief was exhausted; jump into the car and lead a frantic search for him; hurl the ring and letter into the ocean and consign to permanent amnesia the fact there existed a man who'd once borne the name Remington Steele.

Honestly she couldn't remember grabbing the brown paper in which the ring and letter had been wrapped. It was habit, or maybe the investigative instinct, rising to the forefront in defiance of emotional chaos. Before she quite realized what she was about, she was examining it for clues.

The single explosive sob that burst from her throat took her completely by surprise. Clamping a hand over her mouth, her breath coming hard and fast, she fixed her eyes on the paper.

She'd almost overlooked the little sketch altogether, so well concealed was it along a fold on the paper's underside. It was small, maybe as long as the distance between the base and the first knuckle of her forefinger, and dashed off in haste, if the thickness of its lines was any indication. Yet for all that she recognized it right away.

A dancer pressing upward from demi-plié in fourth to pointe. The position in which Remington had captured her the last time she'd posed for him.

The anger that had been bearing her up drained away so abruptly, she had to grab the Rabbit's door and hang on for support.

He hadn't betrayed her. He hadn't abandoned her for Anna. He loved her--_he loved her_. Whatever had gone wrong with his end of the plan—under whatever duress from Anna he'd left the package at the marina office--he was sensitive to the pain it would cause, and snuck in the drawing to reassure her.

It might be a signpost, too, she thought, directing her towards…what?

The letter?

With unsteady hands she smoothed it out on the Rabbit's hood. Yes, the clues were there, stark in their significance. How could she have confused them with a brush-off?

Take the greeting, which would've sounded a warning bell at first glance if she were thinking clearly. He never called her 'darling', not ever. During an unforgettable summer evening at the Monte Carlo-Beach Hotel in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, he'd explained why. Naturally it was because of Anna. They'd avoided the endearment with one another since.

His ring…and everything it meant? That was easy; he'd spelled it out when he asked her to marry him. 'Sapphires, Laura. The gem that represents constancy, loyalty and faithfulness. The perfect symbol for plighting our troth, in my opinion'.

It was what he'd written about giving his ring back, and what she ought to do about it, that chilled her to the bone. The reference to Pramagiorre was plain. 'Returning the favor'. That was the key.

He was telling her his life was in danger, and waiting for her to come in search of him, as he had done for her.

Dropping the letter, she turned her eyes to the Pacific, where Remington had disappeared, maybe forever. And at last felt the missing piece of the puzzle slide into place.

It wasn't that she lacked the facts of the case. It was never that. _It was her perception of them_. It had taken Endicott's murder and Remington's letter to remind her of what had been obvious to her when Anna first visited the agency. Anna didn't want Remington now any more than she had three years ago. From the start she'd only wanted him dead. Laura had known it the moment she'd laid eyes on the other woman. How could she have lost her objectivity so completely?

Easy, Laura thought. It was helping him pull off his charade. Loving him as passionately as she did, needing him, missing him, she'd forgotten that Anna saw him in another light entirely. Jealousy had begun its corrosive work; little by little she'd fallen into the trap of fighting her rival tooth and claw for his affections. An imaginary fight, as it turned out. A waste of her energies. A distraction. And Anna…Anna had encouraged her.

No. Set her up for it. Set _them_ up for it. Just like last time.

The fear was palpable now, a heaviness gripping her chest, pounding in her head, roaring in her ears. Anna had won. And Laura had practically handed her the victory.

Like hell Anna had won.

As of yesterday evening, Remington was alive. The guys at the marina office had seen him, spoken to him. The hotel switchboard had confirmed that he and Anna were still registered when Laura had called from the road, though Remington never picked up his phone. She was going to operate on the belief that he needed to be rescued unless—well, unless someone told her different. Meanwhile, she was a detective. It was about time she acted like one. And the place to start was the hotel.

Initially Laura's conversation with the front desk manager only heightened the confusion. "I can confirm Mr. Steele and Mrs. Patton checked in a little after six thirty yesterday, but I have no idea when they checked out," the manager told her.

"Why not?"

"Because they left their keys in their rooms and just took off at some point last night or this morning. Who knows?" The manager shook her head. "I don't understand it. It's not the way Mrs. Patton does business with us."

"What do you mean?"

"We've really bent over backwards for her since she started staying here. We even worked out a special deal so she could keep her car in the parking garage when she goes home by boat. She's usually more considerate than this."

Translation: Anna was a good tipper, but this time she'd stiffed the staff. Without making a big deal of it, Laura reached for her wallet. "Sorry about the inconvenience. This ought to cover both my husband and Mrs. Patton." She handed over a few twenties. "Keeping Mrs. Patton's Ferrari here when she's away," she said casually. "That's quite an accommodation to make, considering the potential liability for the hotel. Though I'm sure your parking garage is completely secure."

"We haven't had a single problem with it. That's why this is so unlike her. I thought she was happy with the job we're doing."

Satisfied with the information, and the smoothness with which she'd obtained it, Laura turned away. "Good luck straightening it out."

As she queued up in the Rabbit behind several other cars at the parking garage's entrance, she realized her hands were trembling again. It was fear of getting her hopes up. If the Ferrari was absent, it might be that Anna had ordered Mike Watts to set sail this morning without her. And the scope of Laura's search would totally change as a result. Shifted from water to land, the chase wouldn't be so fraught with difficulty. She would have an object she could trace.

She completed a careful circuit of the eight-floor parking garage; after paying the fee a second time, she drove through it again. As a precaution she searched the outdoor lot, too. Anna's wicked silver sports car was nowhere to be found.

Backing the Rabbit into a parking space, Laura let it idle and thought through this new twist. It looked as if the departure of _The English Rose_ was a ploy to throw her off the scent, in case Remington's letter hadn't done the trick. Probably Anna had expected her, Laura, to be too angry or demoralized to dig any further. In the meantime, Anna might very well have motored away hours before the yacht had actually left the marina. Where would she go? More to the point, was Remington still with her?

Swiftly she consulted his letter again. It was hard, trying to preserve a balance between reading insightfully between the lines and jumping to conclusions. Nothing definitive jumped out at her. "Couldn't you find a way to leave a real clue, Mr. Steele?" she muttered aloud. "One is all I'm asking." Frustrated, she tucked the sheet into her purse.

Seconds later she was pulling it back out to review the phrases that were suddenly reverberating in her head. 'Returning the favor,' he'd written of his ring. 'You know what to do with it, and everything it means'.

At first glance she'd guessed it was reference to the symbolism of the ring; now it hit her that it was something more. Pointing out the parallels to her situation in Pramagiorre? There Laura had been trapped in the elegant _casa _of the man who'd intended to murder her. Was Remington saying he was a prisoner in Anna's home, the only one she still had in California—the Malibu beach house?

That might fit. It could be that Anna had for some reason sent _The English Rose_ back to home base in Malibu, intending to pick it up there. Exactly why, Laura wasn't sure. It was a risky move, considering that the police were actively tracking Endicott's killer by now. Then again, when had Anna ever been anything less than brazen in her assumptions that she could get away with murder?

The premise was thin, alarmingly so; she hated staking Remington's life on it. But there was nothing else to go on. Wired with the same sense of urgency that had driven her from Windsor Square that morning, traveling at the same reckless speed, Laura began the trek to Malibu.

On the way she reviewed her options in terms of support from official law enforcement. Quickly she rejected the idea of calling the police. Remington had barely been missing twenty-four hours, let alone the forty-eight required for filing a report. And what story would she tell them? That he'd taken off on a cruise with his homicidal ex-lover in an effort to steal back proof that he was a jewel thief? That would be smart. Or that she'd deduced he was in danger through a coded "dear Jane" letter he'd left behind? She'd be lucky if the least they did was laugh her out of the station house.

For the first time in years she wished that Murphy Michaels hadn't left the agency, or that he'd remained near enough to Los Angeles to call in an emergency. He would've been ideal today as advance scout and eventual back up. Those were roles Mildred wasn't capable of stepping into. Laura needed a combination of muscle and expertise for the sortie into Anna's beach house she was envisioning; good as she'd been for business, and much as the Steeles loved her, Mildred lacked both.

Laura was on her own.

The only stop she made en route was at a hardware store on the outskirts of Long Beach to pick up a flashlight and a crowbar. By a little after two o'clock, having hidden the Rabbit some distance up the road, she was herself concealed on the slope above the Pattons' beachfront compound, scanning it for signs of life.

All appeared quiet and deserted. To be on the safe side, she crept down to the garage and peered in through a rear window. No Ferrari--or any other car, for that matter. If this was Anna's destination, she clearly either hadn't yet arrived, or had already departed. Was it wishful thinking to decide it was the latter? Laura hoped not. Nor was she remotely ready to give up the search.

With utmost stealth, drawing on tricks Remington had taught her, she advanced on the guest house. She didn't do as good a job jimmying a window as her husband would have; it took her longer and she made more noise. Fortunately there was no one inside to hear her. The little house, she discovered, was untouched since the Steeles' visit three weeks ago.

The opposite was true of the main house. Though it was unoccupied now, there was evidence everywhere that seemed to corroborate the theory they'd developed on Monday. Someone had been here to remove Anna's clothing and other belongings from closets and bureau drawers. The furniture was swathed in dust covers, the refrigerator and cupboards cleared of perishable foodstuffs. The water was still on, but the flick of a light switch confirmed the electricity wasn't. The facts added up to one conclusion: Anna was preparing to leave town.

But the gratification of seeing herself proved right was obliterated by another incontrovertible fact. Remington wasn't anywhere in the house. From the looks of things, he never had been.

Of course he hadn't. The odds that Laura had actually intuited a hidden message in his letter were always slim to none. Too bad for her that her undisciplined heart, brimming with hope, had ignored those odds.

Standing at the sliding door that led to the deck, she leaned her forehead against the glass, dread engulfing her, darker and heavier than she'd ever experienced, no, not even at the worst of times with Remington, and God knew there were plenty of those. It left her mind a blank, bereft of the tiniest suggestion as to what her next move should be. Her original conviction had been right. She'd already failed him. She'd lost him hours ago.

Only the memory of a remark Remington had made last time they were here could've persuaded her to check the rest of the grounds. He, the king of shortcuts, had thoroughly enjoyed himself at her expense when she suggested they go home, leaving the job undone. 'Whatever happened to thoroughness? Eh?' he'd teased her.

It was just as warm today as it had been that evening. The air in the boathouse was thick with heat; so would the garden shed be, as she recalled. Picking its lock, she was fully prepared for the furnace blast that would assault her.

But not for the faint masculine groan that accompanied it.

It was a voice whose timbre, whose every tone and inflection, was indelibly recorded on her sense memory—provided she wasn't imagining that she heard it. "Mr. Steele?" she faltered, fumbling for her flashlight. "Remington?"

Another, louder groan was the response. And her reward was the sight of him, illuminated by the flashlight, lying half-hidden behind a couple of plastic trashcans.

For a frozen second she couldn't quite take it in. Amazing: by the flimsiest of logic, the most improbable of conjectures, she had tracked him down. It was stupid, ridiculous, that she should've succeeded by such irrational methods. And yet…here he was.

Was that really so strange? After all, he'd found her in Pramagiorre the same way.

In the next second her shock faded away, every consideration did, as she blundered frantically through the baking heat and the obstacles that separated her from her husband. At last she was dropping down at his side on the concrete floor, lifting his head into her lap, bending over him. "Remington? Sweetheart?"

He had heard her; he was stirring; he opened one eye to squint up at her briefly before shutting it again. "Oh. It's you." It was a hoarse croak. "I knew you'd come."

She sat back. The greeting was so matter-of-fact, their reunion so void of drama compared to the hell she'd just lived through, that laughter at the contrast bubbled up in her and escaped. Something even funnier happened in the transmission, though: it came out sounding more like a sob.

His debility, visible even in the dimness, had a lot to do with the switch in emotion. He was pale and drenched in sweat, his dampened hair sticking to his forehead, beads trickling down his neck. His cracked, dry lips formed a frightening contrast. Under her fingertips the pulse in his wrist jumped and fluttered.

Heat exhaustion. The symptoms were unmistakable to someone with first aid training. It was no wonder; with the sun beating down, and not a breath of fresh air to be had, the temperature in the shed had to be ninety degrees or higher. Her guess was he'd been exposed to these conditions for hours.

There was more. A quick exploration with the flashlight revealed a thigh-to-hem rip in the right leg of his jeans. Underneath was a swollen ankle and a long abrasion whose edges were so jagged and torn, it evoked a horrified gasp from her. The angry red of the surrounding flesh and the crusted blood attested that the wound hadn't been treated.

Her chest was hitching in another sob, this time a silent one. "Oh, my God," she choked. "What did she do to you?" A rhetorical question, one he was in no shape to answer.

But his lids flickered anyway, and then he was staring up at her, confusion clouding his brow. "Laura?"

"Sh." She hushed him with a finger on his lips and fought to speak with the firmness he was used to. "I'm here, sweetheart. We're getting you out of here, and fast."

The authority in her tone reassured him, she thought. It roused him a little, too; when she raised his arm and wrapped it around her shoulders, he held on tight. Between the two of them—she levering upward with all her might, he leaning on her for support—they got him up on his good leg, and shuffled and staggered inch by inch towards the door.

Once outside, however, his knees buckled; it took every ounce of strength Laura possessed to ease him comfortably to the ground. The only saving grace was that he was stretched out in the shade cast by the wall of the shed. In obedience to those far-off first-aid lessons she rummaged in the shed for something on which to elevate his legs. Then she hovered a moment, stroking the wet hair away from his face. "Remington?"

This time both of the blue eyes remained closed. "Hm?"

"I'll be back in a minute, okay? You just relax and lie still." And with a lingering kiss on his sweaty forehead—bone-white, like the rest of his face—she was off to the main house.

Later she would describe herself as inhabiting the place in her head where she went when she was competing in a race, or performing a ballet workout, or immersed in a case. That's what the next half hour or so felt like. So concentrated was she on Remington, she acted on autopilot., breaking into the house again, running back and forth with water, collecting the few first aid remedies she could find. It was with the same unthinking efficiency that she applied herself to the task of hydrating him and cleaning his wound.

Gradually the water he'd drunk began to bring him around. She was bathing him again with a cool, wet cloth—his face, his hands, his neck and chest—when she realized that his gaze was fastened on her. There was a gleam of returning lucidity in it. "Ah, Laura. There you are," he said.

Yes: he definitely sounded less parched. That was enough to enable her to smile at him. "Here I am."

He muttered something, words she couldn't quite catch; although she bent close as he repeated them, she still couldn't. But they were audible the third time around. "I don't love you."

She was taken aback despite herself. "What?"

"It's what I told Anna. 'I don't love you. I'd have never gone back to you. I was only pretending for my wife's sake. To—to protect her. It made me sick, pretending, because _she's_ the one I love'…"

"Is that--" she paused, swallowing tears, resumed "—is that why she hurt you, sweetheart?"

"Hurt me?"

She motioned towards his leg.

Running his tongue over his lips, he reflected for a bit. "Ah, no. That was me trying to get away from her. She had a gun, you see."

"I know. I think she killed Endicott with it."

"She did. He knew too much, apparently."

"The parole scheme."

"He was up to his neck in it, along with Patton. The go-between. And as besotted with her as Patton was, to hear her tell it."

"Until I told him what she had going on the side with you. Did he get greedy?"

"Jealous and demanding, more like."

With a long sigh, he let his head fall to the side, and she thought he was drifting off to sleep. Perfect. It would give her an opportunity to go for help. He was far from out of the woods, and she'd pushed the limits on what she could for him with basic first aid. He needed the kind of care available only at a hospital, fluid replacement, stitches in his leg, someone to examine his ankle. The problem was, with the house so isolated, and its phone service disconnected, the Steeles' sole link with the outside world was the Rabbit and its mobile phone.

But she'd have to leave him alone—weakened, defenseless—to retrieve it. If Anna were to return while she was gone--

She'd just made up her mind to take the chance when he spoke again. "You'd have been proud of me, Laura. I almost made away with the papers last night."

"You did? Where were they?"

"On board the yacht the whole time. Cleverly hidden, but not clever enough to fool me."

The frail hint of bravado wrenched her heart so much she couldn't quite manage her usual eye-roll. "I thought you didn't plan on looking for them until this morning."

"I hadn't. But she'd made an appointment with the hotel masseur for as soon as we arrived. It was a splendid opening…one I couldn't not take advantage of. Ask me why not."

"Why not, Mr. Steele?"

"It meant perhaps I could come home to you that much sooner."

There was a long silence. In the stillness it all came rushing back to Laura, the sheer awfulness of those moments after she'd read the letter, the suffocating sense of betrayal, hatred and fury. It was the last time she would willingly remember it. And never would she breathe a word of it to Remington.

He was watching her with the tentativeness that had become habitual to him over the last month. Whatever her face revealed just then, it seemed to comfort him. The anxiety disappeared; he grasped her hand. Then, softly and in a few short sentences, he related as much of the story as he could: how Anna had surprised him in the act of absconding with the evidence; how at gunpoint she'd forced him to compose the letter and leave the package at the marina; his attempt to escape before she could lock him up in the shed and how he'd flayed open his leg in the process.

And at the end of it he said: "Tell me you love me, Laura."

It was the first time he'd ever asked that. She couldn't help but stammer in surprise. "You know I do."

"I know you do," he agreed. "But it's nice sometimes to hear you say it."

The silly tears were pricking her eyes. Dashing them away with the back of her hand, she leaned over and kissed his mouth. "I love you."

"As well you should," he breathed, a ghost of his native cheekiness, and smiled up at her.

Now that she'd started, she didn't want to stop. "I love you," she said again, and kissed his cheeks in turn. Next were his eyelids, his forehead, his chin and throat, each kiss punctuated by a murmured declaration.

Then it transfixed her, an idea so fitting that she raised her head in the middle of a kiss. Too schmaltzy? Too sentimental? Once upon a time she would've dismissed it in exactly those terms. She was a different Laura now…and the wife of Remington Steele.

She grabbed for her purse. "Remington, look," she said. "Look what I've got."

He saw. His lips parted. He held his left hand out to her.

The ring slid onto his fourth finger much more easily than it had during their wedding ceremony. "Back where it belongs," she said, and bent to press her lips to his palm. Laying his hand against her cheek, she added, "And not a moment too soon."

He moved his hand slightly in a caress. His smile—the beautiful slow smile she loved—lit his face again. Then he sighed…and slept.

This time she didn't hesitate to run for the Rabbit. Providence was still on her side; her 911 call from the mobile went through immediately. In considerably less time than she would've expected, the ambulance from the hospital in Thousand Oaks was descending the driveway with flashing lights and howling siren.

Although they sympathized with Laura's desire to stay with him, the paramedics refused to allow her to ride in the back with Remington. "If you can tell heat exhaustion when you see it, then you know he's not critical," one of them said. "We'll get him hooked up to an IV first thing. By time you get to emergency, he'll be just about good as new."

It wasn't precisely the truth, but close enough. She found him exhausted but alert when at last she was directed to his room. The steps she'd taken to bring down his body temperature were so effective, the trauma team hadn't had to resort to more drastic measures. Ice packs and fans were working just fine. The doctor wanted to monitor his fluid intake overnight with the goal of releasing him the following afternoon.

The bad news was his ankle, which had sustained a severe sprain. Six to eight weeks of immobilization was the prognosis. The gash, cleaned, sutured and bandaged, would heal with no problem.

His room was nice and private, and they had it mostly to themselves after his doctor paid a final visit, but still they didn't talk much. Neither of them was up for it. They'd said enough as it was; anything more would've been pure anticlimax. Besides, he needed to sleep. Very soon, his hand clasped in hers, he was doing exactly that.

Meanwhile, she tried to settle down. She knew she should've been content after such a close call simply to savor Remington's presence. She should've listened to his even breathing, rejoicing that he'd been restored to her, whole and almost healthy. She should've been whispering prayers of gratitude for his life.

Part of her was.

The other part was restless.

Another twenty minutes plodded by. At last she tossed aside the magazine she wasn't really reading and rummaged in her purse for the appropriate small change. The pay phone, she already knew, was down the hall, next to the elevators.

Propping her shoulder against the wall, she waited for the call to go through. Gave the name of the person she sought to the switchboard operator. Waited for him to pick up.

"Lieutenant Jarvis?" she said at the sound of the familiar voice. "Laura Steele. I think I may be able to help you catch the person who killed Clayton Endicott."

TO BE CONTINUED


	13. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

At half an hour after sundown, Laura began to worry Anna wasn't going to show.

As for herself, she'd returned to the Malibu estate a little over an hour ago and gotten into position. She was near the shed, an excellent vantage point from which to monitor the house and grounds, including the driveway. Her flashlight lay close at hand; her gun was even closer, in her pants pocket, safety off. Firsthand experience had taught her how quick Anna was on the draw. It didn't hurt to be prepared.

The triumphant conclusion to her search for Remington had blown away some of the cobwebs from her brain, Laura thought. Not that she was under any illusions that she could altogether predict what Anna's next moves would be. But as her taut nerves finally relaxed, she'd begun to ponder the inconsistency with which Anna had dealt with Remington today. She'd had plenty of time and privacy to shoot him and hide his body in the shed. Why hadn't she? Scruples? Laura knew Anna possessed none. Soft-heartedness, or its flip side, sadism? Neither one fit the methodical coldness that was Anna's defining characteristic. Maybe, fresh out of ideas, she was simply improvising.

One fact had seemed clear. Anna wouldn't leave matters as they stood. She would be back to wind up unfinished business. Or so Laura had thought as she called Lieutenant Jarvis. By now she was beginning to question her instincts, which, after all, weren't entirely reliable where Anna was concerned.

Some distance behind her _The English Rose_ gently rocked at anchor, lights extinguished, ghostlike against the backdrop of sea and sky. It had put in to the dock while she was at the hospital with Remington; the captain and crew members were long gone, though by what means, she couldn't determine. But that the yacht might serve as Anna's escape route had occurred to Laura immediately.

It made sense. With the bulk of her husband's assets liquidated, Anna could have planned the cruise to San Diego to cover up both Endicott's murder and Remington's. The only witnesses who could definitively say that she and Remington hadn't returned to Malibu by water were the crew, who would depart when she did. But the alibi was flimsy, one that wouldn't hold up long under police scrutiny. If Anna was going to evade the law she would need to run soon—within hours. Otherwise the window of opportunity would close for good.

Really it was far too early to give up on her, Laura decided. Night had only just fallen. Sooner or later, Anna would come.

In the meantime her thoughts turned to Remington, out of danger in more than one respect in his hospital bed at Los Robles Regional. She'd left him deeply asleep, his forehead dry beneath her lips as she kissed him good-bye. The nurse she'd asked on her way out had assured her that his vitals were strong, his condition completely stable. But what comforted Laura most was the knowledge that he was beyond Anna's reach. And he was going to stay there. Within the next few hours she would guarantee once and for all that Anna never got the chance to hurt him again.

Because the property was situated off the main drag, it was unusually quiet, and night noises seemed intensified by comparison. Foremost among them was the ocean, slapping against the piles of the boathouse and dock and the sides of the yacht, washing in and out of the cove. That was why Laura wasn't sure at first that she'd actually heard a car approaching from the road that led to the house. Holding absolutely still, she strained to listen. There it was: the silken snarl of what could only be a high performance engine.

A moment later the beam of its headlights preceded the car down the driveway. Smoothly it took the curve to the garage and stopped. In the interval before its lights went out, Laura could see it was the Ferrari.

Right hand on her flashlight, the left curled loosely around the hilt of her gun, she waited.

A tall, slim figure struck southward from the garage, straight for the shed.

Laura continued to kneel. Reassuring, with the confrontation all but upon her, how clear-headed she felt, calm and purposeful.

Anna had nearly reached the shed. In a moment she would switch on her flashlight and grasp the padlock that fastened the door.

In a single coordinated motion, Laura stood and pinned her opponent to the spot with her own flashlight.

"Looking for something, Mrs. Patton?" she asked. "Or should I say: someone?"

It felt like minutes ticked by before Anna turned, though in reality it was only a few seconds. "You do have a knack for turning up when you're least expected, don't you?" she replied almost pleasantly. Her eyes were narrowed, but that might've been because of the glare. "Or wanted."

Laura raised a brow in acknowledgement of the reference to Club 10. "My husband would say it's part of my charm." Then, sharply, as Anna made a slight move towards the lock: "He's not in there."

"So I've gathered."

"He's going to be fine, thanks for asking. No lasting harm done. I'm sure Clayton Endicott's children would give anything to say the same about him."

Face totally expressionless, Anna was silent.

"I have to admit you've baffled me," Laura went on. "It was a bizarre idea, locking Remington up and leaving him here. Normally your preferred method for disposing of an unwanted suitor is a bullet. It's how you took care of Endicott, isn't it?"

Still Anna didn't respond. Nor had Laura's interrogation ruffled her serenity. They might have been discussing vacation plans, or the possible end of the mini heat wave, instead of the murder of one man and the near-death of another.

Little did Anna know that sort of resistance only spurred Laura onward.

"Or maybe you're back to finish the job. Then what? Off to greener pastures with Walter Patton's fortune?

"Why bother to ask me? You seem to have worked it out so beautifully on your own."

"On the contrary, there are too many loose ends. They always bring out the worst in me. Ask my husband." There was a pause. "Well?"

They faced each other in a wordless battle of wills. At the end of it, almost imperceptibly, Anna shrugged. "If you must know, it was meant to look like an accident."

That was the grand strategy? Laura frowned. As such, it left a lot to be desired. So did its execution. Suddenly Anna's aura of invulnerability seemed to have slipped a little. Her plan was transparent, amateurish, at best. Any decent investigator could've unraveled it within hours of finding Remington's body—

Therein lay the rub. It might not have been effective for fooling the police in the long run, but for Anna's purpose, it was perfect. And Remington would've undergone terrible suffering because of it. Death, slow and lingering, by heat and thirst, or gangrene from his wound, or all of the above. If Laura hadn't discovered the drawing—or looked more closely at his note…

It took a fair amount of self-control to conceal the scalp-prickling horror that was creeping over her, but Laura did it. The chill only increased as she registered the detachment with which the other woman was explaining her reasoning process. No. Worse than detachment.

Indifference.

Anna said: "It seemed less likely to rouse suspicion than shooting him would have done. I've no desire to go back to prison, you know. The police would've thought he'd taken a fall-if they even looked for him at all. Don't forget, he'd betrayed his wife and gone off with me, never to return. He left you a note telling you so."

"You left him here to die." There: Laura had made the direct accusation. "Why? You have what you wanted from Patton. He isn't a threat to you anymore."

There was an odd expression in Anna's eyes. Could it be puzzlement? "But of course he is. Why else would I have taken such pains to be rid of him?"

Apparently the question was rhetorical, since she didn't wait for an answer. "He ruined everything between Walter and me the day of the trial. I'd accepted that a prison term would be necessary, if it meant Walter would never discover what he and I had been to each other. Bad enough the damage Raymond had already done. I thought Walter would move heaven and earth to get me out of it. But it didn't work quite the way I'd planned. Walter was convinced I'd pled guilty to somehow protect _him_. He was jealous…Enough to wash his hands of me for good."

A fragment of memory rose before Laura's mind's eye. She and Remington encountering Patton and Endicott in the hallway inside the Los Angeles County courthouse after the aborted trial; the glance that Patton and Remington had exchanged while waiting for the elevator. Small wonder that Patton had looked as if he would've murdered Remington on the spot, if he were physically capable of it. Until that moment, he hadn't realized the extent of Anna's lies.

"And a fortune slipped through your grasp. But you wormed your way back into his good graces, didn't you? As soon as he got sick, he took you back."

"If only he had. It would've saved me eight months in prison," Anna said dryly. "Don't you understand? Walter wouldn't _be _reconciled, in spite of Clayton's best efforts to bring us together. Not until the news that Remington Steele had married."

It was the answer to the question that had dogged Laura from the beginning, and the last thing she'd imagined she would hear. Funny that her slowness in figuring it out for herself didn't seem so much of a drawback any more. Not now, not when her careful, systematic extraction of the information was bearing such fruit.

"So Patton forgave you in the end. And bought your freedom."

"It was almost pathetically easy, really. Deep in his heart he'd never stopped wanting me. It only needed a balm for his wounded male pride and a little timely persuasion to give him the push he was waiting for all long."

"Then this was—what?" Laura gestured toward the shed. "Revenge? Payback for Mr. Steele rejecting you?"

Incredibly, Anna laughed. "Oh, my dear. Haven't you been listening? I could've had him years ago, if I'd really wanted him. But where would be the profit in that?" A change must've been visible in Laura's face, even in the darkness, for Anna added, "Shocked, Mrs. Steele? Why should you be? There are…acquisitions…far more worthwhile than a man's heart, no matter how handsome and enamored he may be. _He_ almost spoiled my chance at them once, knowing my past as he does. So did Raymond. I've simply taken steps to see they don't come back to haunt me in my new life."

As it had the last time they met, her gaze raked Laura up and down, but this time there was genuine, if reluctant, respect in it. "I must say he took me by surprise today. I had it on good authority that I was the love of his life. But you seem to have thoroughly supplanted me in his affections. However did you manage it?"

Anna offering aid and comfort to the enemy? Laura wasn't buying it. Consigning to the background the involuntary, inward tremor of joy the comment had kindled in her, she fixed Anna with a bland stare. "No big secret there. I love him."

"Very touching. But frightfully naïve of you."

"Must be the influence of my narrow, provincial upbringing. Tell me about Clayton Endicott. Were you forced to 'take steps' with him, too?"

"He was useful for a time. Then he stopped being useful and became tiresome."

It wasn't precisely the response Laura was angling for. She tried again. "I notice you didn't have any problem using a gun on him."

"Strictly for the sake of expediency. I needed a gun. Clayton had one. News reports are saying the police suspect robbery was the motive for his shooting. Interesting how it worked out, don't you think?"

"So you covered up the murder by making it look like a robbery."

For the first time a touch of impatience sharpened Anna's voice. "I said so, didn't I?"

"And tonight you'll set sail and make a clean getaway before the police can take a full body count. Is that about the size of it?"

"As I told you earlier: you've worked it out down to the last detail. Well done. You really are as clever as _he_ believes you are."

"Forgive me if I'm not exactly flattered by the compliment."

The words had a flippant edge that belied the fact that Laura was watching every move Anna made. For a while the blonde's right hand had been hovering casually above the corresponding pocket of her linen jacket. Too casually, Laura thought. Now Anna was turning towards the house, hand dipping even lower…

She was saying, "I won't pretend it hasn't been interesting, Mrs. Steele, but haven't you had enough for one evening? Because if you haven't, I have-"

Swiftly she rounded back to Laura, drawing her gun as she came. As calmly and impassively as she had faced Remington three years ago at Club 10, she threw back her shoulders and cocked the hammer.

Two other things happened simultaneously.

First, a startling flare of light that coalesced into a white pool with the two women exposed in its center. It had no particular origin, but came from everywhere, behind them, before them, from either side.

Second, the door of the shed banged open, revealing that the padlock was fastened to the staple, but not the hasp. Through it strode Lieutenant Jarvis, a walkie-talkie hooked to his belt.

In his right hand was his service revolver. "Anna Patton?" he said. "You're under arrest for the murder of Clayton Endicott and the abduction and attempted murder of Remington Steele. Put your weapon on the ground and step away from it."

No one would ever be able to understand what Anna did then, let alone explain it. For instead of obeying Jarvis' order, she whirled on him, pistol sighted at his heart. Laura could've sworn the inarticulate cry she let out was of fury.

The next instant transformed Laura's image of Jarvis as a soft desk jockey forever. Crying, "Down, Mrs. Steele! Get down!" he sprang at her in a flying tackle that knocked her flat, and stretched his body over hers.

The whole world didn't really explode. It only seemed to.

For ten or fifteen seconds there was no noise but the crack of rifle fire and the zing of bullets speeding towards their target. But suddenly they were cleft by a high, animal scream. Laura felt Jarvis' weight shift and move off her. "She's down!" he was shouting. "The shooter's down, God damn it! Hold your fire! _Hold your fire_!"

All went quiet. Moments later, Laura cautiously lifted her head. From the slopes to the west and south, from cover on the beach, the SWAT team was converging on the shed, seven men in soft-billed blue caps and bullet-proof vests. Jarvis had risen to meet them. One of them was muttering into a walkie-talkie, "—female suspect shot…paramedic unit _now_."

On the ground was a body, prone and convulsing: Anna, visible to Laura in a single snatched glimpse before Jarvis blocked her view.

"Mrs. Patton?" He was bending down to Anna's ear. "Mrs. Patton, can you hear me? The ambulance is a few minutes down the road. Try and take it easy til it gets here." While the lieutenant was speaking, the SWAT guy with the walkie-talkie broke away to climb the hill toward the road. The other men were congregated loosely around Jarvis and Anna.

Only Laura held herself apart from the little group, arms wrapped around her knees, eyes averted. She couldn't say how she knew, but a deep certainty had taken hold that these were the moments of Anna's death. And she couldn't bring herself to watch. Dimly it had occurred to her that she was sparing herself—and Remington—a recital of the details at some point in the future. The less she saw, the less she would have to tell him.

But the sounds of death? Against them there was no insulation, no protection, short of childishly clapping her hands over her ears. They would invade her dreams time and again in the weeks and months that followed. As would the nightmare wail of the ambulance hurtling towards them from the north. As would Jarvis' flat, emotionless statement: "She's gone."

There was little for Laura to do after Anna died except wait for Jarvis to wrap up the details.

Finally, with mop-up directions given to the SWAT team and the arrival of the ambulance, he was done. "You okay, Mrs. Steele?" he asked as they started towards the hiding place where, for the second time in twenty-four hours, she'd concealed the Rabbit.

"Fine, thanks to you." Well as they knew Jarvis, he wasn't someone with whom she was comfortable enough to reveal any signs of emotional upset; their relationship with him shaded from the professional into the adversarial too often. So she did no more than quirk an amused eyebrow at him. "That was some fancy tackle you used on me. Have you been hiding secret football skills all this time?"

His frank, boyish grin briefly creased Jarvis' face. "Hell, no. High school wrestling champ three years running." Sober again, but with admiration evident in his glance, he added, "That was a good job you did out there tonight, getting a confession out of her. It took a lot of guts. I'm just glad the Malibu PD granted me jurisdiction on the case before she could leave the country."

It was as close to a thank you as Jarvis was likely to give. Laura nodded her acceptance of it. "So am I."

"It's never easy, seeing a woman die like that, even if she was a nasty piece of work. As a police officer you always hate to resort to deadly force. If there was any other way…"

But of course there hadn't been. He was as aware of it as Laura was. Anna had effectively sealed her own fate as soon as she'd pulled her gun.

Arrived at the Rabbit, they paused. "You're going back to the hospital?" Jarvis asked.

"I should just about make it before visiting hours end." She hadn't confided the information that Remington had no idea where she was or what she'd undertaken tonight. It was none of Jarvis' business. And now, realizing the absolute necessity of reaching her husband before news of the shootout hit the airways, she was eager to be off.

Jarvis must've sensed it, because he kept their farewells to a minimum. But just as she was sliding into the driver's seat, she heard his voice calling her name. Suppressing a sigh, she cranked down her window and slanted an inquiring glance up at him.

"Would you pass something on to Mr. Steele from me?" he said.

"Sure."

"Tell him I'm glad to see you the two of you learned your lesson the night Roselli got away."

It was an allusion to the Steeles' botched attempt to nab their enemy by themselves in Pico Union last September—and a comparison with her cooperation with him over Anna. Trust Jarvis to get his digs in, even when he was trying to be nice. With a rueful shake of the head, Laura rolled up the window and started the engine.

Traffic on the exclusive beachfront road was as busier than she'd experienced to date; she had to wait quite a while, left turn signal blinking, to merge onto the northbound lane from the shoulder. The biggest holdup was a slow-moving vehicle at the end of the line. She drummed irritably on the steering wheel as it came into view.

And recognized it as the ambulance carrying Anna's body to the morgue. Flashers darkened. Siren mute.

As they should have been. There was no need for them now.

A cold shudder swept through her. The old saying was a cliché, but evidently it was also a great and powerful truth when manifested in one's real life. For there but for the grace of God might very well have gone Remington Steele.

And her. And her. It was the difference between the wife she still was, and the stunned, devastated widow she would have been if Anna's plan had succeeded.

Her hands, their impatient tattoo abandoned, were shaking as they gripped the steering wheel. Prayers of thanksgiving for her husband, for their intact married life, were rising to her lips.

She prayed them for the entire seventeen-mile ride back to Thousand Oaks.

* * *

Remington was still safe, and apparently asleep, when Laura slipped into his hospital room with twenty minutes to spare until visiting hours ended for the night.

The room had been tidied since she left it, the fans and ice packs cleared away. She tiptoed across, intending to move a chair closer to his bed as noiselessly as possible. But his voice halted her in her tracks. "Don't ever do that to me again, Laura," he said.

In spite of the slight rasp in his throat, he was as peremptory as she'd ever heard him. She turned. He was awake, all right, and wearing the telltale signs of irritation, snapping eyes, lowered brows. There wasn't the remotest resemblance to the pale, enervated man she'd rescued five hours ago.

"You're supposed to be resting, Mr. Steele," she replied.

"Resting? _Resting_?" He thumbed the button that raised the top half of the bed to a sitting position and glared at her. "While you disappear without so much as a good-bye to confront a murderess? That _is_ where you crept off to, isn't it? To look for Anna?"

Lying to him was out of the question. With a silent gesture she indicated that he'd guessed correctly.

"I knew it! Meanwhile here I was, trapped, hemmed in by hoses and tubes, in no shape to back you up if you needed me! Rest? Not bloody likely!"

The 'hoses and tubes' amounted to a single IV line connected to a hanging bag of saline solution. She hid a smile. "Would you calm down? I was armed. And I had plenty of back-up, courtesy of Lieutenant Jarvis and the Malibu PD's SWAT team."

He seemed only marginally appeased. "Come here," he said, grasping her arm and pulling her to him so he could search her face. After a few seconds he exhaled a long, grudging breath. "You look none the worse for wear, I'll give you that. Thank the good Lord."

"I'm fine. More importantly, so are you. And you're going to stay that way."

The abruptness with which he abandoned his battle stance told her that his finely tuned ear had caught the overtones in her answer-the immense relief, the tiniest ring of victory.

"Is she-?" he asked.

She nodded.

"What happened?"

"She made the mistake of aiming her gun at Lieutenant Jarvis. SWAT teams don't take kindly to that sort of thing."

"No, I don't imagine they would."

That remark seemed to shift the conversation to a different, tragic, plane. They gazed at each other somberly.

He said: "Tell me everything."

She did. It didn't take very long. Even so, well before she'd finished, he'd dropped the guardrail and drawn her onto the bed, where she leaned back against him, enveloped in his arms.

"She might've just as easily avoided the scene of the crime and simply boarded the yacht," he commented as she wound up the narrative. "What made you suspect she'd incriminate herself?"

"It was something you said after she shot Marleau. Remember? 'You just had to see who came through that door'. I figured she wouldn't be able to stand it unless she'd checked for herself whether you were dead or alive."

"Brilliant piece of deduction, my love. Though I have to confess…I thought you went for another reason entirely."

"Oh?"

"I thought for a moment that you"-he hesitated, clearly unwilling to put it into words-"Well. I thought perhaps you'd set out to remove the threat permanently."

"You mean what you almost did to Roselli in Pico Union, don't you?"

"Something like that."

Thoughtfully she gazed down at his hands, clasped with hers at her waistline, and considered what he'd said. "I don't think so," she replied at last. "Maybe if I'd arrived while she was locking you in, I could have done it. But I knew you were safe. And I knew we could trust Jarvis to put her away. Justice was done tonight, Mr. Steele. And I'm satisfied."

"My avenging angel." He kissed the top of her head.

She registered the kiss and the endearment, but didn't acknowledge them; her mind was otherwise occupied. "There's another thing that's been nagging me," she said. "It has to do with you, actually. I'm not quite sure how to put it—"

"Spit it out is the best way, I always say."

"It's a long drive from San Diego to Malibu. You must've had plenty of opportunity to disarm her and make a run for it. Why didn't you?"

"She'd planned ahead for that contingency even before we left the dock yesterday. That detective of hers? He wasn't only tailing you. He had orders to shoot to kill, if Anna didn't revoke his instructions at a certain hour. Or so she said. It wasn't worth the risk, Laura. Not until we were nearer home, and I had a better chance of getting to you before he could."

"Wait a minute." This was the first time during the last twenty-four hours that she'd even recalled the detective's existence. Hard as she ransacked her memory, she couldn't recall a single suspicious character within her vicinity, neither in San Diego nor Malibu. Certainly no one had accosted her on the road.

She told Remington so. "He could've decided murder wasn't in the job description and removed himself from her employ, so to speak," she concluded.

"Or perhaps she was lying about that, too. Why spoil a spotless record?"

So absorbed was Laura in their conversation, she hadn't kept track of the time; now she realized with a start that visiting hours were over. But Remington blocked her attempt to crawl over him by reaching over and pulling off one of her shoes. "What are you doing?" she asked, making a grab for it.

With a mischievous grin he held it just out of range. "Getting you ready for bed, of course. You'll be much more comfortable sleeping without these." The first shoe hit the floor, followed in short order by its mate.

"What are you talking about? You know I can't sleep here with you."

"Why not? We managed it very nicely at Saint-Sauveur."

What he meant was the hospital in Menton, the one to which he'd spirited her the night he rescued her in Pramagiorre, and where she'd discovered him in bed beside her the following morning. She'd never asked why he was there. She didn't have to. It was enough that the familiar arms holding her, the blue eyes smiling down into hers, had saved her from awakening in a strange place, alone, sick and frightened.

That was France; this was Thousand Oaks. "It's against hospital rules, that's why not. They'll say I'm interfering with your treatment, or something."

"Don't be absurd, Laura. The presence of a loved one is essential to the patient's recovery. Everyone knows that. We've spent too much time sleeping apart as it is."

"What if they try and kick me out?"

"I'll pretend to have a relapse. Demand they allow you to stay. Convince them the only way to maintain my body temperature is to have you lying next to me."

"Body heat's the cure for hypothermia, not heat exhaustion." By now, her resistance practically evaporated, she was scooting back to her original spot.

"This bed would be cold and lonely without you. Does that count?"

"It does with me."

"In you get, then."

As he spoke he lifted the sheet, an invitation for her to slide underneath. In the process she caught a glimpse of what he was wearing. The peal of laughter rang out too late for her to repress it.

"What?" he exclaimed.

"I've never seen you in one of those before," she said, indicating his hospital gown. "You look…um…adorable. Can I just say the tailoring leaves a little something to be desired, but nothing to the imagination?"

If anything could've persuaded her that he was all but recovered, the annoyance with which he responded was it. "Ah, yes. Thank you, Mrs. Steele. Remind me to return the favor whenever you've been similarly humiliated."

Judging by his reception as she snuggled up to him in the darkness—a tender kiss, his fingers laced with hers again-his indignation was short-lived. To fit the bed's narrow confines meant lying on her right side with her head on his shoulder. That was just fine with her. It was her favorite position in which to fall asleep.

The combination of his warmth and her exhaustion from the rigors of the day would've sent her off immediately. But Remington wanted to talk. "_The Postman Always Rings Twice_," he said softly.

"Mm?"

"MGM. Lana Turner, John Garfield, 1946."

This-the only film annotation he'd offered since the ordeal with Anna had begun—got her attention. Her drowsiness receded slightly.

"A _femme fatale_ and her lover are arrested for murdering her husband, but there's not enough evidence to convict them," he was saying. "She's eventually tried and released. Then, just as they're making a life together, she's killed in a car accident. Naturally the police suspect he did it. And therein lies the irony. Even though he's innocent, he goes to the gas chamber for a crime that never was. In his last moments he recognizes his punishment as divine retribution for the husband's murder."

Laura allowed the synopsis to percolate. Granted, her head was a little fuzzy, but still…"That doesn't sound like much of a parallel to what just happened," she objected, yawning.

"It's not the plot that made me think of it. It's the meaning of the title."

"What _does_ it mean? I've always wondered."

"Garfield explains it in his final scene with the district attorney. He compares getting away with murder to waiting for the postman to deliver a package. You may be convinced he's missed you the first time, but wait. The second time never fails to do the trick. The second ring, in other words. You see?"

"Not really."

He sighed gently. "Look at it like this. Anna murdered Marleau and escaped her punishment. That was the first ring. Yesterday she killed Endicott-"

"—and tonight she paid for both his murder and Marleau's with her life?"

"Precisely. It was the postman ringing the second time, a summons she couldn't outrun." He broke off. "I'd never thought of it before, but it's another example of Xenos' old adversary, nemesis."

"Justice, Mr. Steele," she corrected him. Yielding to drowsiness, she yawned again. "Two very different things."

"So they are." His arm tightened around her; his breath, warm and vital, stirred her hair. "I haven't thanked you properly for saving my life today, have I?" he whispered.

He hadn't, not in so many words. But it hardly mattered. She had no doubt that he, the man of deeds, would discover a thousand ways to convey it as their life returned to normal.

One way in particular popped into her head. "I'd much rather you showed me," she said slyly. "For example, if we were at home, you could-" And into his ear she murmured a description of all the places where he could touch her, and the ways in which he could touch them, much as he had done in his phone calls from the hotel."

He wasn't in the least discomfited by her directness. Instead he chuckled appreciatively. "All in good time, Mrs. Steele. All in good time."

By now the pull towards slumber was becoming too strong for Laura to resist; it was a bigger effort to move or speak. His voice seemed to come from an increasingly longer distance away, too. "Off to the land of Nod, are we, me darlin'?" he asked.

"Mm-hm," she sighed.

"Rest well. You've earned it."

The last thing she felt was his hand beneath her chin, tilting her face up for a good night kiss.

And the last thing she heard was Remington saying as their lips parted: "Ah, Laura. It's well and truly over this time. She'll never come between us again."

Silence fell. The Steeles-undisturbed, inseparable-slept.

TO BE CONTINUED


	14. Epilogue

Epilogue

"Happy Valentine's Day, Mrs. Steele," said Remington into Laura's ear, releasing his grip on her shoulders so he could unwind the blindfold from around her eyes.

Frankly, Laura wasn't sure how he'd managed to put it there in the first place. The minute he'd produced it, she'd hastened to hold him at bay with a string of what she considered very rational, very solid objections. It was the beginning of the workday. They'd only just arrived at the office. There was no time for playing games. A new client was due within the hour. He should know by now how much she hated surprises.

He'd heard her out with a combination of amusement and exasperation. "You are the most ridiculous woman I've ever met in my life, bar none," he'd drawled when she was through. Even so, something about his expression said her ridiculousness was one of the things he loved about her.

And you're the most irresistible man on the planet, she was tempted to reply as she suffered him to fasten the blindfold—giving in, as he'd probably assumed she would from the start. But she kept her mouth shut. She'd been too prone to that sort of gush lately as it was. Any more of it, and it would serve her right if people started calling her "the little woman".

Was she falling in love with her husband all over again? She wouldn't have put it quite like that, since never for a second had she been _out_ of love with him. But it was true that the two and a half weeks since Anna's death had borne more than a passing resemblance to a second honeymoon. Or third, if she counted the handful of golden days they'd spent in Menton in November while she recuperated from Ligurian poison.

Except there was one major difference between Menton and Thousand Oaks. Remington was to all intents and purposes recovered from heat exhaustion before she was allowed to take him home from the hospital. He hadn't the same restrictions on his physical activity that her French doctor had imposed on her. The only impediment to their reunion was the one posed by his injured ankle; neither of them was in the mood to allow a minor thing like a sprain stand in their way.

And she thought their weekend at Twin Pines had set the standard in terms of pure, uncomplicated enjoyment of each other! Little had she suspected how it would pale in comparison to the day he came home for good. In typical style, Remington had recalled all her suggestions as to how he could thank her for saving his life, and was full of roguish determination to carry out every single one. "And this, my love?" he would say, laughing down at her—or up, as the case might be—while his long fingers sought the softness of her curves and peaks and hollows, or his lips and tongue called forth an explosive response from sensitive flesh. "Is this what you had in mind?"

Yes, she heard herself answering over and over. Oh, yes. Until the power of coherent speech temporarily deserted them both, and all they could do was cry out in release, clasped in the perfect safety of one another's arms.

Still later there was in store for Laura the deeper, quieter joy of holding her sleeping husband, a deliberate antidote to the night Anna had interrupted them in his hotel room. Unobserved in the lamplight, she did what she never had before: slowly traced his features with one finger, her touch so delicate that he didn't by so much as a flicker of an eyelash signal that he felt it.

The old Laura would never have conceived of such a thing. Even the new Laura wasn't sure she could have done it if he were awake and able to comment. But that night it felt not only right, but necessary for reassurance that he was really here, and really fine.

Had she sufficiently repaid him for Pramagiorre?

The question came from out of nowhere. Startled, she lifted her head as if it had been spoken aloud. Honestly it was weeks since she'd thought of their relationship in those terms. She'd been too busy working out how to keep him alive to worry about fine degrees of obligation between them.

And maybe that was the answer. Score-keeping, payback: it was an outworn way of thinking that belonged to their old relationship. What mattered now was the two of them looking out for each other the best they knew how. He'd gotten the hang of it already. It had taken her longer to catch on.

He would go to hell and back for her if she needed him. She could count on him; he'd proven it. Could he say the same for her?

Yes, she decided, switching off the lamp and curling up beside him. He could. She would go to hell and back if he needed her.

She already had.

That was the start of the return to normal life for which she'd longed so fiercely during Anna's tenure. Only one unresolved issue remained to cast a shadow over it: the question of what had happened to the photographs and papers that incriminated Remington as a jewel thief.

Their whereabouts had been the farthest thing from Laura's mind the evening she'd set out to lay her trap for Anna. There was no point in second-guessing herself now, she thought; clearly she couldn't have taken steps to retrieve them and still involve Lieutenant Jarvis in her plan. Weighing the outcome in the balance, she was convinced she'd made the right decision. On the other hand, wondering if the proverbial axe were about to fall any minute didn't often make for a good night's sleep.

Remington was much more relaxed about it than she, thanks to his recollection of the moments after Anna had discovered him breaking and entering _The English Rose_. "I'd swear she put them back in their hiding place, Laura," he'd insisted. "In fact I'd stake my life on it. It'll take a far more creative bunch than Jarvis and his men to sniff them out, trust me."

"Couldn't we sneak aboard and check it out? Just to be on the safe side?"

His eyes had narrowed in thought. "We could, I suppose. It all depends on how they've disposed of it. The police may have seized it as evidence, which means we won't be able to get near it."

"Now there's a comforting prospect."

"We won't know where we are until I've made some discreet inquiries." He began to limp towards his office. "Icy calm, my love, eh? If by some miracle the police have found the papers, let alone connected them with me, we'd have heard by now."

Subsequent events seemed to prove him right. Not only had the Pattons' yacht been signed over by the police to Anna's estate, it was already in the hands of a broker. If the threat to Remington hadn't altogether died with Anna, it was at far enough of a remove that Laura could breathe again.

And even indulge him in a little Valentine's revelry, which not only entailed the blindfold, but also his hands closed firmly on her shoulders, both to steer her out of the reception area and to support his limping steps. What the hell, she thought; why not get as fully into the spirit as he was? Obedient to his whispered instructions, she waited until he'd given her permission before opening her eyes.

He'd guided her into his office, she found; she was facing his gallery of publicity photos, what Murphy had long ago dubbed "Steele's Wall of Shame". She blinked. Then she turned her bafflement on her husband. "This is my surprise?"

Probably more to relieve the weight on his ankle than anything else, he'd retreated to his desk and was lounging on its edge, hands in pockets. A funny glint of expectancy—eagerness?—danced in his eyes. "And you call yourself a detective," he chided her. "Look again."

She did, this time giving the display more than a cursory glance. And gasped in equal parts pleasure and disbelief. For intermingled with the great Remington Steele's expertly staged PR were shots of a real private investigator taking her bows.

The man of deeds had struck again.

He'd left nothing out as far as she could see. There was Laura Holt, PI, with boxer Kenny Hodges after she'd unraveled the mystery of who was fixing his fights, and Laura Holt with the FBI who'd arrested Hodges' brother-in-law on a racketeering charge. The pilot whose career was being sabotaged by a jealous colleague, was here, too. So was Colin Ferrick's Preakness-bound foal, Idle Fancy, saved from a clever horse-napping plot; the five-star chef, his purloined recipes restored from the competition; the chemist with the secret formula for a new, highly flexible plastic. As well as Laura Holt being congratulated by the press, thanked by the police, feted by the mayor, on behalf of Remington Steele Investigations.

In the center was an arrangement of a different kind, composed of five images that were smaller than the others. Four were ranged like the points of the compass around a fifth. Leaning in for a closer look, she realized the compass-points were snaps taken by the house photographer at the Fire and Ice Ball on New Year's Eve. This was the first she'd seen them.

She drank them in. It was amazing how the photographer had managed to infuse a single pose with so much variety. He'd caught the Steeles in profile from the waist up, arms around each other, but with a subtle change in their expressions each time. And those ran the gamut from Remington's playful kiss on the tip of her nose to the fond pride with which he watched her smiling into the camera.

The hub, the fifth photo, was a mutual favorite from their wedding day: the instant after she'd pinned his boutonniere to the lapel of his navy suit coat, captured for all time.

The light in Remington's eyes was brighter than ever as she turned back to him, spreading her hands wide. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything. Or if you do, ask me why I didn't get around to it sooner."

"Where on earth did you find them all?"

"Miss Wolfe—er—Mrs. Wolfe-Gioberti--"

"—Mrs. Foxe-Giacomo--"

"--She may be highly disorganized when it comes to her personal life, but her photo archive system was impeccable. And what she didn't have on file, Mildred was able to winkle out of other sources. Impressive, isn't it, what that woman can do?"

"Very," she agreed.

"I'd have liked to bring us even more up to date. Think of the cases you've solved over the past five years! But none of the photographs the press could supply were worth a damn. You were out of focus, or hidden behind someone else, or your head had been cropped clean off. And the captions! 'Unidentified woman', 'unnamed associate'…"

What appeared to be a new discovery to him was old news to Laura. But she found the indignation it stirred up in him absolutely endearing. " 'The woman behind the man', in other words?" she suggested, amused.

"Not if I have any choice in the matter. Didn't I say it the night of the ball? About time you were represented here."

She didn't need an invitation to move into his embrace. Dimpling up at him, she said, "Have I ever told how sexy you are when you're fighting my battles? Even if it's a little after the fact?"

The eyebrow went up, as she'd expected it would. "Sexy, is it?"

"In the extreme." And with her linked hands behind his neck, she brought his face to hers, letting the ardor of her kiss speak for itself.

But instead of intensifying, he put her away from him a little, looking almost shy. "Wait. I've one more surprise in store."

The painting he laid on his desk was on the small side, maybe three feet by two, mounted in an unadorned frame of polished mahogany. An oil on canvas, it was boldly executed, if not quite perfect in composition. But even she could tell there was something special about its confident brushwork, the energy and immediacy it exuded, its clear colors. They reminded her of something; she needed a few seconds to figure out what.

_The Defeat of Bois-Guilbert. _The painting by Remington's great-great uncle, Ralph Chalmers, that hung in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England.

More than that: it was…_her_. It was her to the very life. Cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling, hair a little mussed; poised in arabesque, yet engaged with the viewer; smiling, her outward-focused gaze warm and direct. It was as different from the last portrait they'd examined here—icy, distant, blonde perfection—as it was possible to be.

The signature in the lower right hand corner read _R. Chalmers Steele_.

"You did it!" she breathed. "You finished your first oil!"

In counterpoint to the thumb and finger twisting his right ear lobe, he shrugged, elaborately casual. "It's a beginning."

"I can't believe you did it so soon!"

"I was…motivated." He slipped his arms around her waist. "At least I have a little something to show for them, all those solitary evenings in Gabrieli's studio. Eh?"

There was a lot of subtext to be translated from what he'd said, but that would come later. Now she cupped a hand on either side of his face and kissed him again. "It's incredible. I'm proud to have been your first model, Mr. Steele."

"My first…my second…my third…" Recovered from the initial anxiety, encouraged by her praise, he was starting to relax.

"Is that your way of telling me you're planning a whole series of portraits?"

"Why not? I'd be following in the footsteps of genius if I did. Think of Monet with his poplars…his haystack…the façade of the cathedral at Rouen. You'll be my 'one perfect thing', Laura."

"Whatever that may be."

"It's why he painted the same subjects over and over again. 'When you find one perfect thing, you ought to stick to it', is how he put it." He frowned. "Or it might have been the nameless second Mrs. DeWinter in _Rebecca_ who said it. Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, United Artists, 1940--"

"Mr. Steele?"

"Hm?"

"Whoever it was? They were right."

It took Mildred's voice and bustling entrance to break their kiss. "Mr. and Mrs Steele, there's a—Oh." Halting in mid-stride, she winced in dismay. "I knew I should've buzzed."

Reluctantly Laura detached herself from her husband's arms. "It's all right Mildred. What's up?"

"Your ten fifteen's here, and a little on the antsy side, if you get my drift."

"He's early," Remington objected.

"He's not the kind of guy who takes no for an answer."

"Give us five minutes and send him in," said Laura.

Even as the door closed behind Mildred, they were feverishly repairing the damages wrought by their embrace, straightening disheveled clothing and ruffled hair, rubbing away lipstick stains. "Tell me again who it is we're seeing?" said Remington.

"Edmund Hogarth. Executive director of the West Coast Society for the Preservation of Shakespeare."

"Ah, yes. Popularly know as The Hambeth Festival. Southern California's only year-round, permanent Shakesperian troupe."

"They've been experiencing a series of suspicious accidents. A fire in the costume department when no one was supposed to be in the building. A round of live ammo in a prop musket. Electrical wiring suddenly short-circuiting. Sound like a familiar scenario?"

"Indeed. The Golden Dugout and the Freidlich Spa come to mind."

With only seconds left before the client entered, she rose on tiptoe and kissed him again, a light brush of her lips. "Happy Valentine's Day, Mr. Steele," she whispered. "Thank you for my presents."

"It was more than my pleasure, Mrs. Steele," he said softly.

Their new client was an imposing man, as tall as Remington but more massive through the shoulders and chest, with a carefully styled, salt-and-pepper mane and strongly marked features. His size and presence could've been intimidating to Laura, but wasn't. She'd seen--and dealt with--his type before.

Her hand gripped his with comparable strength as she greeted him in the center of the office. "Mr. Hogarth? Laura Steele. My partner and husband, Remington Steele."

"Sorry not to greet you properly, Mr. Hogarth," said Remington from behind his desk. "Ankle injury. Must stay off it. Doctor's orders."

Hogarth waved the apology away, glancing from Remington to Laura. "Married detectives?" His voice, a sonorous bass, matched the rest of him. "Isn't that a trifle unusual?" The words carried an undertone of criticism, even suspicion.

"It works for us," said Remington, his eyes holding Hogarth's in a steely gaze. Hogarth was the one to look away.

"Shall we get down to it?" put in Laura. She'd already perched on the outer edge of the desk in readiness for the interview. "What is it you hope we can do for you, Mr. Hogarth?"

And glancing over her shoulder at her husband, sent him the faintest, most fleeting of impish smiles.

The blue eyes twinkled at her in return.

It was back to business as usual at Remington Steele Investigations.

* * *

The man once known to the Steeles as Tony Roselli, and who called himself Mr. Niemand, catching sight of his reflection in a plate-glass shop window in Cambridge, Massachusetts' Harvard Square, paused to make final adjustments.

Navy blue Brioni suit and impeccable Hardy Amies shirt, paired with the tone-on-tone burgundy tie and its matching pocket square? Check.

Black Gucci wingtip oxfords polished to a mirror-like gloss? Check.

Curly, reddish-brown, modified mullet chemically straightened and darkened to blue-black? Check again.

Special colored contacts brightening gray blue eyes to sapphire? For the last time: check.

The gold wire-rims with the round frames were his own personal touch. While not exactly authentic, they weren't completely out of character, he felt. And they were more suitable for Boston, where Ray-Ban Wayfarers generally didn't make the same statement they did in Los Angeles.

He was ready.

His lunch companions were waiting for him in The Rialto at The Charles, just as they'd planned it over the phone. Nice. Of course he'd found an unobtrusive spot across the street from the hotel and watched a good half hour for their arrival. It was always good to make an entrance. It was even better if you'd stage-managed it yourself.

After waiting the requisite seven minutes—long enough for them to start wondering if he was going to stand them up, but not enough for them to resent his wasting their time—he strolled, rather than strode, across Bennett Street, and asked at the concierge's desk for Mr. and Mrs. Prescott.

Prescott rose, the missus didn't, when he materialized table-side. He didn't mind at all, having to introduce himself. It added to the drama. Besides, not only was he starting to enjoy that slippery bugger of an accent in spite of himself, he was getting damn good at it.

"Mr. and Mrs. Prescott?" he said, and extended his hand. "Delighted to meet you. Remington Steele. You needed my assistance?"

* * *

The papers that Remington had so very briefly had in his possession were secure in their new repository: the Patton file, "closed cases" category, basement, Homicide Division, LAPD.

Had they known of this stroke of good fortune, the Steeles would've had to thank Pete Dagonet, newly promoted from patrolman to detective, a guy who loathed his job, disliked his partner and hated Lieutenant Jarvis for assigning him to Homicide when what Dagonet really hankered for was Vice Squad or Narcotics.

Ordered by Jarvis to search the impounded yacht that had formerly belonged to Anna Patton with his partner, a ten-year vet, Dagonet had unearthed the papers completely by accident. It took him a good ten minutes to realize there was more to his find than really hot pictures of a blonde babe wearing a diamond-and-sapphire necklace with matching drop earrings, and nothing else.

The pages of carefully penned notes, the house plans that included multiple views of every elevation, didn't just puzzle him. They also pissed him off. Because what they represented was the possibility of a complicated case that would tie him that much longer to a rotation he loathed, a partner he disliked and a boss he hated.

So he did what any self-respecting shirker would do: concealed the papers in the inner pocket of his sport coat before his partner could see them.

And, at the station house after hours, slipped them into the back of the catalogued, ticketed case file when no one was looking.

Last, he promptly forgot about them.

When Dagonet's and Perez' search of the yacht turned up empty, the Patton case was officially closed. Jarvis, understaffed and overworked, moved it off his list of active investigations. Without reviewing the file again he approved its transfer to the basement.

There the papers that held such terrifying potential for blowing the Steeles' world sky high would remain, untouched, hidden.

For a while.

FINIS

**Next installment: **_**Steele Inseparable **_**Part VII**

"**Something Wicked This Way Steeles"**

Anticipated post date, March 2010

While Laura and Remington go undercover to search for the killer of a Shakespearian actor, _Spotlight News_ reporter Windsor Thomas uncovers evidence that proves that Remington _isn't_ Remington Steele.  
Meanwhile Roselli puts into motion the next stage of his plan to destroy both Steeles.


End file.
